


the light in me will guide you home

by stickmarionette



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Dimitri/Dedue, Pining, Politics, Racism, Rebuilding, Reconciliation, Slow Burn, War, Worldbuilding, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25014211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickmarionette/pseuds/stickmarionette
Summary: Dedue had straightened without ever realising it, his back tense. Like this he towered over Claude, who had not grown an inch since their school days, and somehow still managed to fill a room with his presence, and who was wearing his easy smile again, evidently satisfied with whatever it was he saw in Dedue."Isn't there something you want still? If there is, come with me. If there isn't, then I'll leave you to whatever it is you're doing. I don't know as much as I want to about it all, but you want to reveal the truth of what happened to your people during the Calamity, don't you?"Dedue survives Enbarr. Claude offers him another way forward.
Relationships: Dedue Molinaro/Claude von Riegan, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 32
Kudos: 81





	1. Garreg Mach

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to aworldinside for beta-reading.
> 
> Title from Harbor by Vienna Teng.

> I am so tired of waiting,
> 
> Aren't you,
> 
> For the world to become good
> 
> And beautiful and kind?
> 
> Let us take a knife
> 
> And cut the world in two -
> 
> And see what worms are eating
> 
> At the rind.
> 
> Langston Hughes

**Part 1: the shape of the boundary you leave behind**

Dedue woke in pain and with great reluctance. His eyelids were heavy and he felt no particular desire to open them, but he must have shown some sign, stirred, as he then heard an achingly familiar, sweet voice.

"Dedue? Are you awake? Can you open your eyes for me?"

Consciousness returned with not just physical aches but the remembrance of the far more serious wounds he'd survived: watching Dimitri charge forward at Gronder and trying to drag himself forward on a broken leg, if only to present another target. Being kicked unconscious by an Empire knight's horse and waking to face his failure. And then the aftermath, rallying himself to do his final duty, allying with Claude's army and fighting their way into Enbarr. Taking a mage's spell full on. Striking at Edelgard with the last of his strength.

There was no more reason for him to live, but the owner of this voice had offered him endless kindness, and he'd made her promises. If she called him to the world of the living, he would go.

Mercedes' concerned face swam into view, her eyes wide with unshed tears. "It's been so long I - oh, Dedue, thank the Goddess, I'm so glad."

Dedue raised his throbbing head cautiously, alarmed when even that small movement taxed his strength. At his grimace Mercedes made another pillow appear as if by magic and slid it under his head.

He opened his mouth to protest and thought better of it at her warm, unrelenting gaze. When she offered a glass of water he took that too without a word, suddenly aware of how parched his throat was, and drained it.

They were in a familiar looking infirmary. Any moment now, he'd hear Manuela's melodic voice - but no, that was years and a lifetime ago. The last time he saw her had been Enbarr, when she'd stared at the grand buildings in flames with haunted eyes.

The last time he saw Mercedes had been -

"In Enbarr, I didn't see you in the Palace. Were you hurt?"

Mercedes shook her head. "No, nothing my Crest couldn't fix. The Professor had me with the second group holding the Palace entrance. I didn't see you until Claude carried you out."

"Claude carried me?"

It was such an unlikely notion that Dedue would have doubted it if Mercedes were at all capable of dissembling. Any relationship he could have claimed to have had with the leader of the Alliance stemming from their school days was not close enough to be called friendship. Though Claude had looked relieved to see him in Enbarr, he was hard pressed to think of anything he had that Claude could want now that Edelgard had fallen.

As it was, the words seemed to knock something loose in the foggy recesses of his mind - an impression of being held very tightly, the smell of blood and smoke and the peculiar scent of the air after a lightning storm that attached itself to heavy Relic users. In his delirium he'd thought it to be Dimitri whose warm arms were around him and had drifted out of consciousness content.

"When I saw you on his wyvern I thought you were - " Mercedes took a deep breath and shook herself. "But you're awake and that's what matters. Claude had to leave a while ago to deal with the uprising but I'll send word to the front, he'll want to know you're okay."

That was diverting enough to knock the strange memory out of his mind completely.

"An uprising? I thought the war would have ended, after Enbarr."

The truth was he hadn't thought past what Fodlan would look like after that. There didn't seem to be much point.

"So did I," Mercedes admitted. "I pray everyday to the Goddess for an end to the fighting. But when we found out about the Agarthans I knew we had to keep going, for everyone's sake."

"Agarthans?"

She told him the whole fantastical, sordid story, or as much of it as she knew. Those who slithered in the dark, plotting war and revenge against the people of Fodlan and the Church of Seiros for a thousand years, who had destroyed Fort Merceus and caused so much suffering. How the Resistance Army had ventured into their underground city and emerged victorious, only to hear of the shadow army rampaging through central Fodlan with a dead legend at its head.

"They've already done so much damage. The reports from Hyrm are awful. I hope the Professor and Claude can put a stop to them," Mercedes said, wringing her hands together - a familiar nervous gesture from their school days. Her face was tight with worry.

Dedue gathered up his meager strength and dared to raise his hand to her shoulder. "I have no doubt they will."

Mercedes' shoulder shook under his hand, and then she suddenly threw her arms around him. "I'm so happy you're still here."

He strained to remember the last time he'd touched anyone or been touched with kindness. A hand on Dimitri's clammy forehead as he slept fitfully in their tent, perhaps, or a brief clasp of Dimitri's gauntleted hand on his shoulder. Toward the end he hadn't permitted anything more. His rage had erected an invisible cage that no one could penetrate, not even Dedue.

Maybe that was his error. Maybe if he had tried harder to rattle those bars, Dimitri would not have - but no, it was foolish to think so. He had done the most he could do, and the gods had decided it was not enough.

Dedue had grown up on tales of Sothis, the protector of Fodlan, who favoured brave and fierce warriors and granted them more than their due share of strength, but was also capricious and fickle and liable to withdraw her blessings at any moment.

It certainly seemed the height of cruelty to have left him of all people alive after everything, but she had at least seen fit to safeguard one of her deserving faithful too.

Before that brief glimpse of her with the Resistance Army in Enbarr, he'd last seen Mercedes across a battlefield at Gronder under the Crest of Flames banner, as part of an Alliance battalion headed unerringly for the Imperial army's flank, Annette at her side.

The rush of relief at seeing them alive was followed immediately by dread at the prospect of having to face her in battle. Thankfully, by either providence or design - although he doubted either Claude or the Professor left anything to chance - he did not have to.

Dedue had vowed to follow his prince even into the depths of hell. He would have done it without hesitation, committed atrocities and drowned in blood; he had in the end raised his axe against those he'd broken bread with and killed and lied. Still, there were some things he was thankful never to have been called to do.

"I am glad to see you well also," he said, and very carefully hugged her back.

*

Dedue's strength returned to him slowly.

(If he woke every morning choking down sorrow and regret, that was his own business.)

In a few days he was able to pace the full length of the infirmary and start back on the less strenuous of his training exercises. Aside from Mercedes' frequent visits, which also occasionally included a sad-eyed but smiling Annette, he was largely left alone and glad for the privacy.

He was contemplating a trip to the training grounds when Cyril burst in with someone in tow.

" - not if he's resting," a sharp, high voice said.

Cyril's face brightened at the sight of Dedue. "See, I told you he was awake - hey, Dedue. Good to see you up."

He was speaking to a girl almost as tall as he was but with a round, youthful face, probably no older than 14 or 15. The sight of her warm red-brown skin and thick, tumbling dark hair stuck him with a visceral pang. She could've been one of his young cousins.

"Thanks to Mercedes," Dedue managed through his surprise.

"I helped," the Duscuran girl - for that was what she surely was - said, studying Dedue just as intensely in return. "I wanna study to be a healer, and she's really good. Kind, too."

"Then I thank you." Dedue dredged up the words and the sounds from the depths of his memory, last spoken to his rescuers years ago. The round syllables of his childhood. "You're far from home."

"So are you," she replied in the same tongue, only stumbling a little, before switching back to Fodlani. "I'm Menhit. No need to ask who you are. I've never seen another Duscuran here."

Her tone was flippant but her wide eyes and restless hands betrayed her true state. She was clearly impressed, maybe even a little scared, and trying hard not to show it. Dedue in turn tried not to think about the kind of reputation he might have acquired among Duscuran survivors, what kind of stories they might have told their children.

Cyril was looking between them with an unreadable expression on his face. Dedue would not have previously believed him capable of such a thing. Impossible to imagine, though, what growing up during a war might have done to even the most straight-forward of children.

Eventually, he offered, "there was Cecil, but he - we lost him six years ago."

Menhit snorted inelegantly. "What kind of name is Cecil for a man of Duscur?"

"I dunno, he never told me his real name," Cyril shrugged.

"Sebi," Dedue said quietly. "I did not realise he was lost in the siege."

Sebi had been a stablehand, the son of a Duscuran cook in the village who'd come to the Monastery when his parents died by plague. Dedue had made his best effort at the traditional coming of age stew for him just a few months before the siege.

"I told him to leave, but he wanted to fight." Cyril's face tightened with guilt, another expression far too old for his youthful face. "Saw him get mauled by a Crest monster myself - he didn't have a chance. Should've never even been out there."

Sebi had the scrawny physique of someone who'd been underfed during his growing years; he'd looked much younger than he was. He hadn't judged Dedue for serving Dimitri. To him it seemed a survival tactic, and therefore as valid as his own choice to serve people who despised him. He had been sure to never be seen around most of the nobles, and especially not Dimitri.

"No, he should not," Dedue agreed. "The war was not his to fight."

Cyril shook his head violently. "It shouldn't have been any of us, unless we wanted it. You know, a lot of 'em are making it out like everything that happened was the Snakes' fault."

"Who?"

Cyril waved broadly at the floor below them. "The Slitherers, you know - the underground people. They're meant to have started the war."

"The Flame Emperor started the war," Menhit said sharply. She turned her piercing dark eyes on Dedue. "Do _you_ think everything bad is those slitherers' fault?"

 _Even the Tragedy of Duscur_ , Mercedes had said, looking at him carefully. _They're saying that was the Agarthans too._

"No. I do not. That is a comforting story for children," Dedue said.

Menhit nodded, seemingly satisfied, like he'd passed a test. "Nobles are all the same. Pretty words and pretty smiles and if you're lucky you won't have to die for one."

"Yeah, they are. But Claude's gonna make them change when he tears all the walls down," Cyril said, and Dedue was struck by the forthright pride in his voice, a painfully familiar kind of conviction.

Menhit raised her eyebrows. "He's one of them, isn't he? What's his word worth?"

"Claude's not like that! He's not like them. He - " Cyril opened his mouth to say more and seemed to think better of it with a guilty wince. "He's not."

"You haven't heard what they say about him in Myrddin," Menhit said darkly.

"I bet you I have. They're just - " Cyril made a frustrated noise. "You don't get it. They just don't trust him, it's nothing to do with him."

 _I think she probably does_ , Dedue thought, and sure enough Menhit laughed, a sharp bark that belonged to an adult.

"No, I get that all right."

Cyril subsided a little at her bitterness. "So you know. None of it's true. Dedue, tell her."

The fierce look in his eyes set off a pang in Dedue's chest. He cast about for a suitable response.

The sum of what he knew about the character of Claude von Riegan was this:

He treated everyone the same regardless of their station or race or creed, which was to say that he was charming and friendly and largely inscrutable.

He had taken every possible opportunity to speak to Dedue during their school days, and took Dedue's gentle rebuffs with grace.

In the hour of his victory, the first thing he had done was to carry Dedue out of the Imperial Palace.

"I do not know him well," Dedue said cautiously. "But those whose judgement I trust speak well of him, and I've been told he may have saved my life in Enbarr."

"Yeah, and remember how happy he was when we found you, Menhit?" Cyril said, grinning.

Menhit shoved him playfully. "Urgh, shut up."

"You stared at him for so long I thought you'd broken something."

"He kept _smiling_ at me, who even does that - " Menhit rolled her eyes. A smile had crept onto her face at the memory and it made her look much younger, like the child she still was. "Anyway, maybe you're right. But I'm not gonna rely on anybody else. I've got things to do."

"Like what?"

"I wanna help my people," Menhit said plainly, easily, like it was nothing, like each word didn't make Dedue's heart clench. "The Duke said I could stay here and apprentice to the resident healer, for whatever that's worth."

"Well, he told me he'd rather lose and be called a coward than let all of Fodlan burn, and he kept that promise for five years, no matter how hard it got. That's better than any King or Emperor's done." Cyril gave Dedue a significant look at that. "So don't worry so much. If he said you can then it's done."

"Good. Mercedes told me I'm really talented, you know," Menhit said, preening a little, eyeing Dedue for a reaction.

Dedue might have been a little rusty with the whole concept, but he had no difficulty conjuring up a smile for her. "I have no doubt that's true. I look forward to your success. It was an honour to meet you, Menhit. One day home will be a place again."

He said the blessing in Fodlani, the words feeling strange in his mouth, only for her to reply in their mother tongue.

"Only if we make it so ourselves, right, vassal of the cursed king?"

Where he'd expected judgement on her round face there was instead pity, which grated like sandpaper over his skin, and miracle of miracles, something like understanding.

*

Mercedes beamed at the mere mention of Menhit.

"I was hoping she'd come see you. Isn't she brilliant? I'm sure she'll be a great healer."

They were having a simple meal together in the sparsely populated dining hall. It was still strange to Dedue to be using the Monastery facilities again after so long, and especially when everything else had changed. The others scattered around were not students but mostly Resistance Army soldiers and some monks and nuns, far fewer in number than Dedue would have expected.

They mostly left Dedue alone, some suspicious looks aside, which was a welcome relief but a confusing one until he started spotting the odd Almyran among the soldiers. There were at least a couple of battalions stationed in and around Garreg Mach by his count, and if that had to be tolerated then a few Duscurans were probably the least of the Church faithful's worries.

Still, it eased something in Dedue to see Menhit's admiration reciprocated by one of the few Fodlani people he'd trust to deal fairly with a Duscuran child. The mother goddess had deigned to hold one of her own in her hands, after all.

"I'm sure she will benefit from your teaching," Dedue replied.

Mercedes pushed her plate aside and leaned forward, clasping her hands together on the table. "I need to thank you for being so open with me, back at school. When she first came she was so wary of everything. I would have made so many more mistakes if it hadn't been for you."

"It was my pleasure," Dedue murmured.

Although Mercedes had transferred to the Golden Deer near the end of their school year, their friendship had endured, in part due no doubt to her sheer persistence. He'd been scared, in truth, to have something for himself, and would have tried to cut her out if she had done anything other than what she did, which was to keep reaching out her hand and waiting for him to accept.

She was still doing it, even now.

"This is why I'm still glad I came back," Mercedes said softly. "At the time it was mostly because of the Professor, but I'm happy to be helping Claude too. I want to see the world he's going to make. A Fodlan without the walls we've built to keep out the world."

Cyril had said something about that too, about tearing down walls.

"Does he mean it?"

Mercedes smiled. "You should ask Claude yourself."

Impossible, surely. A child's dream, a fairytale. Unbefitting of a man as shrewd and worldly as Claude.

But it made an odd sort of sense. A goal as closely held as Claude's had to be either deeply sinister or so radical and upsetting to the existing order that they'd have killed him for whispering it.

*

Duke Riegan swept back into the Monastery at the head of the victorious army two weeks later. He was preceded by stories of the glorious battle he and Archbishop Byleth had won, each more ludicrous than the last, until the rumours had them striking down something like a god in a duel.

The army's arrival turned the sleepy Monastery into a bustling town, shattering its previous tranquility. Fortunately, the greenhouse was one of the few areas left relatively untouched.

Dedue had been drawn back there almost immediately after he was released from the infirmary. The new keeper, a solidly-built woman with a kindly face, had gone from resenting his presence to tolerating it after she saw that he was both interested and knowledgeable, and largely left him alone.

To be left alone was still better than being glared at.

At least the greenhouse was in decent shape. He could well imagine the desolate state it would have fallen into after the siege. She had obviously taken care to restore it to something like its former glory when the Monastery was reoccupied by the Resistance Army. There were even a few budding flowers and plants Dedue had never seen before.

He was admiring one of them when Claude found him.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes."

Dedue hadn't heard him come in, and had to school his expression before he turned to face Claude.

In their previous lives, when Claude had been a mere curiosity to most, Dedue had found him unnerving to speak to, on the rare occasions their paths crossed. The coy little smile he wore like armour, like Dimitri wore courtesy and Edelgard her grace and bearing, left no cracks for anyone to latch onto. Someone so young shouldn't have such a smooth, seamless facade.

He'd only grown in confidence and bearing since, and when Dedue saw him in Enbarr he'd been struck by how _settled_ Claude seemed, the absolute certainty he exuded. That more than anything else reassured Dedue despite himself. Duke Riegan's cunning and effortless authority felt more honest than Claude's breezy antics ever did.

His habitual smile, though, was as unreadable as ever.

Dedue bowed. "Your Grace."

The smile acquired a teasing edge. "Really. You must know my name, even if you never said it."

"Yes," Dedue said, blank faced.

Claude laughed. "Are you fucking with me? It really is a new age. How are you feeling?"

"I am well. Mercedes has done more for me than I can repay."

"I know. That's why I left you with her, so you wouldn't run off as soon as you could walk," Claude said. Almost wistful, not a hint of smugness or gloating. "Worked, didn't it?"

So there had been kindness and calculation both in this little scheme. The only flaw being that he'd somehow completely neglected to account for himself.

"I would not have left before I could thank you for saving me."

Claude's smile got wider and acquired sharp edges. "Then maybe I should've stayed away longer."

"Will you not let me thank you?" Dedue asked, trying to hide just how thrown he was. Talking to Claude was like sparring with a ghost.

"What if I don't deserve it yet?" Claude replied, glancing up at Dedue from under his lashes like the ingenue he most certainly wasn't. He was torn between being charmed and vaguely annoyed, which was probably exactly what Claude intended, and judging by Claude's soft chuckle his face was much easier to read than he'd thought. "Sorry, you're fun to tease. Everyone else around here is used to my everything by now. Please, go right ahead."

"Thank you. I do not know why you decided to save me but I am grateful."

Claude's grin flickered. If Dedue was not so used to observing minute changes in expression he wouldn't have caught it. It was like seeing through a mirage for the first time - the teasing grin had been real, and now this one was false.

"I wasn't going to let you die so soon after finally seeing you again," was all he said, though, and breezily enough to make it seem like nothing. "Do you know what you're going to do now?"

"I - no."

He was still surprised to wake up every morning, and it was impossible to think of a future when the surprise was followed by resignation. He'd set a goal for himself, and despite what others might think knew it was a good thing worth dying for, and he'd failed and not even died for his failure.

"I'm sorry for your loss. Didn't get around to saying that before," Claude said, not unkindly, and with an odd, formal weight. "Where I'm from, we believe that the dead return to the earth, the air and the water. So they're still here, in all the living things around us. There's no judgement and no goodbye. I always thought if I died at Garreg Mach I'd like to nourish this greenhouse."

The Duscuran god of the dead presided over the underworld, and only those whose souls were deemed worthy were allowed to return to the realm of the living, to be reborn. Dedue thought he might prefer Claude's version; it certainly demanded less.

"That is an attractive notion."

"Right? But not yet. Why don't you come with me?"

He said it like he was asking Dedue to pass the salt, and Dedue was so surprised he forgot to moderate himself. "Why? What would I do?"

Claude had been terrifyingly observant even as a student, just barely concealing it behind that flippant facade, but the evaluating look he turned on Dedue now had no pretense about it. It was as if Dedue's mind was a clear lake and he could see at a glance what lay at the depths.

Once he would have had no trouble meeting such a gaze. Now he wasn't sure he wanted to show Claude any of it - not the despair nor the aimlessness. He'd been falling since Gronder and when the Emperor fell he'd hit bottom, emptied of hopes and desires, but he still had his dignity.

It was one thing to be there and another to have Claude see it.

Dedue had straightened without ever realising it, his back tense. Like this he towered over Claude, who had not grown an inch since their school days, and somehow still managed to fill a room with his presence, and who was wearing his easy smile again, evidently satisfied with whatever it was he saw in Dedue.

"Isn't there something you want still? If there is, come with me. If there isn't, then I'll leave you to whatever it is you're doing. I don't know as much as I want to about it all, but you want to reveal the truth of what happened to your people during the Calamity, don't you?"

Dedue had never heard anyone outside of Duscur refer to it as the Calamity.

"Not only that," he replied, stiff with surprise.

"Of course not. That's just where it starts."

"The Calamity. How did you know - "

"Honestly, I got interested because it couldn't possibly have been Edelgard. She was what, 13 years old? You don't think she did it, do you?"

"His Majesty thought so."

"I didn't ask what he thought," Claude said evenly.

Dedue had to swallow before he could speak. It felt wrong, like he was stepping on Dimitri's grave, but - "No."

It just didn't make sense. He couldn't rule out the involvement of her allies in the war, those Agarthans that the Resistance Army had recently routed, but Edelgard herself had been a child at the time, just like Dimitri and Dedue.

"Do you believe the Agarthans were involved?"

"Ah, yes, the snakes," Claude sighed. "I doubt there's a soul in all of Fodlan better at ferreting out secrets than yours truly, but there's just so much we don't know. There's no telling how much of Fodlan's history they've distorted from behind the scenes. I have multiple teams working on retrieving everything they left behind right now. They must've had some records. We'll figure it out."

Dedue remembered very well what happened on the day of the Calamity and how little in the end it had to do with men in strange masks. He thought of Kleiman and Rowe and every Kingdom noble who'd come out of the whole affair with land and power, shorn of a troublesome king.

"Even if it was orchestrated by those Agarthans, the Calamity was made by men."

It sounded harsh to his own ears, but Claude just nodded.

"That's why it's hard to be sure - we're plenty awful enough on our own. But I'd like to find out either way when the dust settles on all this. We just need to rid Faerghus of the snakes and their minions first."

Now they were on familiar enough territory.

"That's none of my concern."

Faerghus had taken almost everything from him and he had given it the rest. He was done fighting in its name, now that the only thing keeping him tethered to it was no more.

Claude didn't seem surprised by his refusal. He took a step toward Dedue until they were a mere arm's length apart, his steady gaze fixed on Dedue's face.

"Duscur is part of Faerghus right now, isn't it?"

"Duscur is no more," Dedue muttered, his voice fraying at the ends. It hurt more to say it out loud when his hopes for its restoration were gone. He could barely get the words out, only for Claude's reply to steal his breath.

"It can be again."

He made it sound so easy.

 _Only if we make it so ourselves,_ Menhit had said.

"Can isn't enough."

"Geez, you're a tough customer. Direct, though. I like that. Okay. Let me be clear then." The easy smile vanished off Claude's face like the lifting of a curtain, leaving behind an almost otherworldly certitude. Dedue thought with a shudder of Edelgard at the head of the Imperial Army. She'd looked at them all like this then. "Duscur will rise again. I swear - on the blood that flows through my veins. On my ancestors."

He meant it, too; of that Dedue was reasonably sure, which was the most confusing part. He did not doubt Claude was capable of the machinations necessary. The man had against all odds defeated the Empire, after all. What he couldn't figure out was why.

"Why do you care? Isn't it...beneath you?"

Claude's brow furrowed in what seemed to be genuine confusion. "What do you mean?"

"All of Fodlan's yours now."

"That's not quite - well. It's beside the point. It's not beneath me to want to put this right. Me of all people. You're a smart man, I'm sure you know what I mean."

He tilted his head, expectant.

Dedue knew that Claude had been an outsider at the Monastery, just as he had been an outsider. That whispers and rumours followed him, especially at first; that his own house kept their distance. But he'd also seen it change as the year went on, as Claude consolidated his place; after all, despite his questionable origins and breeding, this was still the next leader of the Alliance.

Because Dedue had eyes and had met more people than just the ones who lived in the Monastery's bubble, he was almost positive that the home Claude sometimes spoke of was Almyra.

That an Almyran had managed to become heir to the Riegan Dukedom, let alone leader of the Alliance, let alone the co-leader of a force that had conquered half of Fodlan, was either a miracle or a testament to the brilliance and ruthlessness and ambition of the man in question.

The man who wore a careful, expectant half-smile now, braced for every possible reaction.

"I have heard about your dream."

And now he was being beamed as if he hung the moon.

"Those flowers you used to grow here, the purple ones - they were Duscuran Lilies, weren't they?"

Dedue bit back a protest at the abrupt change of topic. He doubted it would do any good, in any event.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"I saw pictures in a book once, but they didn't really do them justice." Claude finally showed Dedue what he'd been holding, half behind his back, which turned out to be a heavy tome, grinning like an excited child. He opened it with a flourish, and there, tucked in between a map of Faerghus, were the bright purple petals of a single Duscuran Lily.

Something in Dedue's chest tightened painfully at the sight. "No, they do not."

"There were a couple that survived while the Monastery was abandoned but uh. I didn't really have any idea how to keep them alive. Whatever I tried probably ended up killing them, which if I believed in signs would really freak me out." Claude snapped the book shut and held it out to Dedue. "Here. Hang on to this one for me until we get a chance to plant the real thing where it'll grow. I want to see a whole field of these."

His smile had warmed enough to leech the chill from those still, watchful eyes; they were bright and intent on Dedue's face.

Embers from a fire Dedue had thought doused forever flickered with life, lit by the man in front of him, who spoke of impossible things as easily as he breathed.

"If you mean that…"

"I did swear to it."

Dedue took the book and tucked it carefully into his satchel. Then he unstrapped his axe and swung it before him single-handed, barely missing Claude, who didn't step back or even flinch - not that Dedue had expected him to - and laid it flat so that he was holding it like an offering.

"In exchange for the restoration of my people, I offer you my service."

Claude tugged his right glove off, laid his bare hand on the flat edge of the axe, and stared up at Dedue with his glittering eyes.

"Real quick - if you come with me, you're not my retainer. You'd be just like Annette or Mercedes. I don't need you to be loyal to me. Just to my cause. If you know what that is, then you know what I'm asking. All of Fodlan could be our enemy."

The sheer audacity of Claude's stated cause beggared belief. It was more dangerous to swear to than his person, and Claude no doubt both knew it, and knew it wouldn't matter.

"If you take up my cause, I will gladly take up yours."

Somehow Claude made the brush of his fingers across the sharp edge, just lightly enough to avoid breaking skin, seem like far more. Dedue could almost feel the warmth of it on his face, and the answering flush beneath his skin. He suppressed a shiver.

Claude's smile widened. "Then I accept."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter: Duscur. And some old friends.


	2. Arianrhod/Duscur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude puts on a show. Dedue sees some old friends.

_That night, he had a visit from Dimitri._

_Sometimes the Dimitri who appeared in his dreams was the boy who'd saved him on the day of the Calamity; sometimes he was the Prince from their Academy days, keeping everything in, earnest blue eyes and a hopeful smile; and sometimes he was the King he'd been, at the end. Spears in his back, bloodied, a snarl on his lips._

_"Is the girl dead?" He growled._

_Dedue knew exactly what he wanted to say to this wild-eyed Dimitri. He'd been waiting for what felt like an age to say it._

_"Yes, Your Majesty. You have been avenged. Edelgard is dead."_

_An odd spasm passed over Dimitri's face, as if he was torn between glee and sorrow, before his stony expression reasserted itself._

_"The traitor Cornelia, she still lives?"_

_"For now. Do not worry, Your Majesty. I will see the usurper dead and Faerghus freed from her rule." Dedue let himself kneel and put his arms around Dimitri, heedless of the blood and the grime. "Rest now."_

_"You must live, Dedue."_

_The last thing Dimitri, - the real Dimitri - ever said to him._

_"I will, Your Majesty. I promise."_

Dedue's eyes were wet when he opened them.

Even in his dreams, he was incapable of saying what he truly felt. Just as he'd been incapable of it before Dimitri had passed beyond his reach.

He'd told himself it wasn't ever the right time - because there were things they needed to do first, because there was still so much that stood between them - and hoarded his feelings like a precious treasure, something that kept him warm on cold nights, all the while cherishing the hope that one day, when he could call Dimitri by name and stand beside him in the new Duscur they'd made, they would speak of it.

In his satchel Dedue always carried a small case of incense, the last of which he'd bought from a Duscuran street peddler he'd spotted in Enbarr.

He lit them every morning, one for his father, his mother and his sister, and now he added one for Dimitri, and asked the god of death to be kind.

*

The Resistance Army was unlike any force Dedue had ever seen. Alliance soldiers mingled with Knights of Seiros, Kingdom remnants brought along by Annette, soldiers of Brigid who'd come with Petra, and the Almyrans in their colourful finery.

Then there were Claude's Immortal Corps, a band of hand-picked wyvern riders whose ranks had swelled further every time Dedue encountered them. Almyrans alongside Fodlani, all of them flaunting Claude's livery with the same pride Dedue had seen on Cyril when he'd talked about tearing down walls.

Within his army, at least, Claude's dream was becoming a reality.

Dedue finished up at the training ground to find a very tall and sturdily built Almyran woman draped in the emblem of the Immortal Corps watching him.

"Good form," she said in a brassy voice. She had a pleasant lilting accent.

"Thank you."

"You ever try a mount?"

"Animals do not like me."

She stared at him as if waiting for a punchline. When he didn't provide, she gave him an exaggerated once-over, grinning all the while. "Really? You look okay to me. I've never met a man of Duscur before. You don't seem much different to us."

"No, not much at all," Dedue said in halting Almyran.

She laughed in delight. "You sound better than most Fodlaners I've heard try." Her Almyran was rapid-fire, almost too fast for him to follow.

"I had a good teacher."

As a child, Dedue had heard travellers and traders tell tales of the vast and bountiful land to the east, ruled over by a great king who delighted in waging war. After the Calamity he had taken it upon himself to learn anything that would help him serve Dimitri well, including the basics of the main foreign tongues.

He'd practised on merchants in marketplaces in Fhirdiad and around the Monastery, and then there had been Sisygambis.

They'd met when Dedue was at his lowest, or what he'd thought to be his lowest.

He'd saved Dimitri from execution and had in turn been saved by the Duscuran Vanguard, though their leader had made it very clear that he considered it a repayment of a blood debt and nothing more.

Dedue hadn't cared about their judgement or their disapproval of him choosing to throw his life away for the enemy of the Duscuran people, or even his own untreated injuries. All he wanted was to find Dimitri and help him, but it seemed to all intents and purposes that the man had disappeared into thin air, even with Dedue's formidable tracking skills.

He'd fallen ill with infection within weeks of leaving the Vanguard and when Sisygambis found him in front of her run-down inn he was delirious with fever. He thought the goddess of life had appeared to lead him to the underworld.

In reality she was a lean Almyran woman with a stern, lined face whose upright posture made her seem much taller than she was. He almost never saw her smile, but she'd patiently nursed him back to health and would not take any recompense, saying only that as he'd been on her doorstep she was clearly meant to help him. Eventually she allowed him to do some work around the inn to repay her, and taught him the smattering of conversational Almyran he still recalled.

Dedue wondered with a pang how she was doing. Whether he was about to bring war to her doorstep.

"Clearly. I'm impressed! Some of the Corps are getting pretty good but that's mostly words like 'over there' and 'watch out'. And swear words, and how to hit on people."

The young woman in front of him now looked nothing like Sisygambis. But she did have the same appealing frankness.

"My Almyran is rather lacking on those topics."

Her large deep set brown eyes lit up when she grinned. "Well, we'll have to see about remedying that, Dedue Molinaro."

Something about the way she was looking him over made him feel unaccountably flustered and he scrambled for politeness to cover it. "You have me at a disadvantage, I'm afraid."

"Lieutenant Barsine of the Duke's Immortal Corps. I lead the Fire Breathers." She said it with enormous pride, and deflated a little when he didn't visibly react. "You know what that is?"

"I do not."

Dedue resisted the urge to add an apology. Barsine clearly wanted to tell him - it was better to give her the chance.

"We're the fastest flyers in the Corps. Whenever there's a big siege we get right up over the city walls and throw fire down on the battalions defending them."

"What about enemy ballista and archers?"

She gave him a daredevil grin. "That's why we only take the best flyers. Of course it still takes a smart commander to make sure we don't all paint the walls."

It was the first time Dedue had heard of such a tactic - ordinarily any aerial advantage that could be gained by sending flying battalions overhead in a siege was negated by how easily those soldiers were picked off by those stationed on the wall, not to mention the screening flyers.

But he'd also never seen anything like the Almyran wyvern riders who'd fought for the Resistance Army in Enbarr. Perhaps they trained for it differently.

They packed different weapons, too - fire arrows trailing bundles of strange, sharp-smelling materials that burned like nothing else, and vicious-looking, enormous axes like the one Barsine was holding, at least seven foot long, with two crescent-shaped blades.

"Your axe - is it for riding?"

"Too big for anything else. Many in the Corps use them." She swung it to demonstrate; Dedue could feel the rush of air even from an arm's length away. "You wanna try?"

Dedue nodded. "Yes. One moment, please." He went over to the weapons rack and carefully slotted the steel axe he'd been using back in its place.

The glint in Barsine's eyes was his only warning before she heaved the axe at him. Horizontal and not blade first, which meant she was probably just playing and not actively trying to kill him.

He managed not to stagger catching it two-handed, which he was going to take as confirmation that he was basically ready for battle.

"Unusual handle. Much lighter and thinner than what I'm used to," Dedue said.

"That's standard for us. Makes it easier to wield."

Dedue gave it an experimental swing, and then another, advancing on the training dummy at the far end of the grounds. He was used to compensating for the heft of steel axes and the associated loss of reaction time so the weight of the Almyran battleaxe was not a problem. Its length, however, took some getting used to. It almost required build-up.

He swung it in a half-arc and split the training dummy clean in half. Behind him, Barsine whooped.

"As you said, impractical for infantry."

"Try this instead." Barsine held out a hand for the battleaxe and managed to make hefting it with one arm look effortless. With her other she unstrapped a smaller axe from her back and handed it to Dedue. This one was about three feet long and had a single vicious looking blade.

"For throwing?"

"You got it."

Dedue hefted it, swung it a few times to test its weight, and then he turned and hurled it at the centermost target at the other end of the training grounds. The tip embedded itself in the wooden target with a loud thunk. Not quite dead center but not terrible for a first attempt.

This time, someone else cheered and clapped.

Dedue glanced at the source of the applause to see Claude watching them avidly from the sidelines.

Barsine hurriedly bowed low. "Uh - Your Grace! Didn't see you there."

Claude waved her off. "At ease. Don't mind me."

Barsine grinned. "Finally gonna grant me a match?"

"You know I don't really have the knack for axes."

"Forgive me, Your Grace, but I've seen you throw one of these and hit a target in mid-air."

"Throwing's different," Claude shrugged. "I just have good eyesight and good aim."

Dedue had been on the opposing side enough to know that unusually for Claude he was being far too modest. He well remembered that a single arrow from Failnaught had taken out Sylvain's mount from across the battlefield at Gronder.

"I'm actually here to borrow Dedue, if you were done plying him with axes."

"Of course. It was good to meet you, Lord Molinaro," Barsine said.

"Dedue, please."

He'd never been a lord of anything, and certainly not now. It was odd to be the recipient of automatic deference again by virtue simply of his association with a leader, especially one as informal as Claude.

"I'll see you around." Barsine bowed again to Claude. "Your Grace."

Claude nodded at her and started walking at a brisk pace, gesturing for Dedue to follow.

"What did you need me for?" Dedue asked.

"Informal war council before we march. You'll see," Claude said. He glanced side-long at Dedue. "Your fighting style is interesting. Very different from Hilda's."

"She has a greater range of movement with her mount."

The few times Dedue had seen Hilda fight - actually fight, not just train half-heartedly while complaining the entire time - had been enough to instill a healthy respect for her prowess. There was something deeply wrong about seeing a tiny pink-haired woman descend on a wyvern and cut a man in half with one swing between one blink and the next.

Claude shook his head. "Not just that. Hilda's aggressive - she takes you down before you can hurt her. Your instincts are different. You stay there and take the hit."

Those were not casual observations he could have made just watching Dedue train.

"How long were you watching me?"

"Oh, years," Claude said breezily. "What were you talking to Barsine about?"

"I was curious about her axe."

"Ah. First time you saw an Almyran battleaxe up close?"

"Yes. Their construction is very different to what I am used to. Thin handles on such large axes are not easy to achieve."

"You know a bit about weapons," Claude observed.

"My father was a blacksmith. I grew up around it."

He hadn't spoken of his father in years. And somehow, under Claude's curious gaze, the words just slipped out as easy as breathing. If he didn't know better, he'd think it was some type of sorcery.

"Did you like it?"

It was good, honest work. He had liked the idea of creating something real that would last. But the truth was he hadn't had a chance to decide whether his father's trade would be his. The Calamity took that from him, along with everything else.

"It was our vocation," he said, finally.

They'd arrived at what used to be Rhea's audience chambers, which had been transformed into a makeshift war room, with a massive desk dominated by a large map of Fodlan and piles of papers stacked haphazardly all over.

Claude threw himself into a large armchair and waved Dedue into another. "Oh? A smithing town, then?"

Dedue glanced at him in surprise. "You know more than most about Duscur."

"Not as much as I want to, like I told you. Most of what's written down is obviously biased garbage. I want to know so much more - not just the textbook stuff, but how people live."

His blazing curiosity was the most sincere expression Dedue had ever seen on Claude. It lit up his face and made him look like a boy again.

Claude's grin turned sly as he watched.

"What is it?"

"I'm enjoying the novelty of having you actually look at me. You never used to."

He did. Everyone did, just as Claude intended. Dedue just hid it better than most because for him to be caught looking at anyone would inspire suspicion at best.

"Business now. Flirt on your own time." Hilda's cheery voice preceded her into the room. "Hey, Dedue. It's so great to see you doing better."

Her voice was honey sweet, her smile perfectly pitched and impenetrable as ever.

Hilda had inspired almost as much unease in Dedue as Claude in their student days. They had a similar level of surface polish that could've hid anything. It was about the only explanation anyone had for why Claude had chosen her of all people as his retainer.

Dedue would never have guessed that part of what she'd been trying to hide was devotion. Perhaps it wasn't the same as Dedue's commitment to Dimitri or Hubert's to Edelgard, but it was clearly no less real. He'd seen her bustling around the Monastery in Claude's name enough in the past few days that it belied her languid, lazy act entirely, and finally felt like he had some measure of her after all these years.

"Thank you."

"Are you going to come with us?" Hilda asked brightly, glancing between him and Claude with transparent curiosity.

"Yes, I believe so. If that's what the Duke wants."

Hilda snorted. "Oh, he definitely wants. That's great, you can help me keep Claude out of trouble. It's a big job and I just don't have enough hours in my day."

"Hey, I resent that," Claude said, but the look in his eyes was unbearably fond.

"Oh, so you don't want this letter from Margrave Gautier?"

"Gautier? That's a surprise. I thought the old bat would rather die than bend the knee to an upstart like me."

Claude reached up and snatched the letter out of Hilda's hand, ignoring her squawk of protest. His smile brightened upon seeing the contents of the rich envelope. "Oh, it's Sylvain."

"About time he took over," Hilda said.

Something wound tight inside Dedue loosened at that. He had seen Sylvain, Felix and Ingrid wounded at Gronder, including by the two people in front of him, and when he'd woken up to Dimitri gone he hadn't wanted to ask what had happened to the others.

Claude scanned the letter quickly, let out a startled, clipped laugh and then read it over again before handing it off to Hilda. She was so short it was no effort at all for Dedue to read it over her shoulder.

> _To His Grace Duke Riegan, Leader of the Leicester Alliance_
> 
> _Congratulations on your success in Enbarr. I never doubted you would overcome the Empire once Fort Merceus fell._
> 
> _I come before you now as a supplicant. My father was deceived and executed by the usurper Cornelia, and although your victory has weakened the wills of those holding up her so-called Dukedom, they remain in occupation of Western Faerghus and Fhirdiad itself._
> 
> _I hope that you can overlook the circumstances of our last meeting and come to our aid. With our forces combined we can easily take Faerghus back. As proof of our sincerity, Duke Felix Fraldarius will meet you with a small contingent of soldiers at a location of your choice and join you on your march north._
> 
> _I look forward to your response._
> 
> _Yours truly_
> 
> _Sylvain Gautier_
> 
> _P.S. King's pawn to E4. I know you usually prefer to play white, but just this once? Your move._

"Cheeky of him to assume we'd already be preparing to march north," Claude grinned.

Hilda raised one fine pink brow. "Was he wrong?"

"He's a lot smarter than he pretends to be. Alessia, go get Shamir for me."

"At once, Your Grace." The guard at the door saluted, turned on her heel sharply and clattered down the hall.

Claude beckoned for Dedue to join him by the war table.

Red, blue and yellow headed pins dotted the giant map of Fodlan, covering every major city and fortress. The yellow pins dominated the map, covering the entire Alliance and most of the former Empire. Claude waved at the biggest remaining cluster of red, stretching from Magdred all the way to Fhirdiad.

"What do you think? How should we approach this?"

It wasn't an idle question, judging by the sharpness of his focus, an intensity Dedue could almost feel. It had been a long time since Dedue's last conversation like this - Dimitri had often consulted him in the times before, but Dedue had fought alone for much of the war, and once he found Dimitri again, the king he had become was not especially interested in discussions of strategy.

He treated Claude's question with the seriousness it deserved. Claude had asked him for a reason.

"I would suggest patience. We will not be able to march on Fhirdiad without dealing with Western Faerghus first. Leaving Kleiman and Rowe at your back would be disastrous."

Hilda sighed. "I want to argue but you're probably right."

"Hilda loves a shortcut," Claude grinned.

"I sure do. I'm also pretty sick of fighting, but I guess it can't be helped. Sorry, Dedue, keep going."

"Sylvain is very capable and well resourced but he will not be able to assist you unless you can relieve the pressure on him first." Dedue pointed to a large red pin. "Arianrhod is the key. Rowe is a harsh and unpopular ruler and the region is tired of feeding Cornelia's war, but all he has to do to deny us is shut the gates."

"I was afraid you'd say that. Oh well, we'll just have to charm the Silver Maiden into opening her doors."

"Definitely get Sylvain for that," Hilda giggled.

"Hilda! I'm shocked at you. Besides, I have a different strapping young Kingdom noble in mind for opening this particular door."

"Urgh, I haven't seen you look so smug since Fort Merceus. Whatever it is better work."

Their affectionate bickering was interrupted by Shamir gliding into the room, as silent as a ghost.

"Your Grace."

"Thanks for coming. Any word from Judith?"

"Yes. Ingrid's figured out who the grain was really from and wanted to pass along her thanks."

"Pfft. These Faerghus nobles are all so formal," Claude said, looking pleased despite himself. "Anything else I should know?"

"Byleth's settling in for a while to deal with Bergliez. She'll come as soon as the Empire's secure and she's able."

The acting Archbishop had left Garreg Mach with scarcely a pause for rest with a formidable contingent of the army in response to a request for help from Ferdinand and Dorothea. Caspar's father was apparently proving quite a handful.

"Won't be a while yet, then," Claude sighed. "Hopefully she and the others will be with us when we take Fhirdiad."

"Oh, I forgot to mention - Ferdie sent us tea," Hilda chimed in. "And a ten page letter. There's nothing pressing, I left it on your desk."

"What kind of tea?"

"Bergamot."

"Oooooh. I see." He exchanged an amused glance with Hilda; clearly this was significant if only to them. "I'll write back tonight."

"Wouldn't want him to feel neglected."

"No, definitely not. Shamir, I want you to go meet Felix at Dead Man's Pass. You have to move fast and quiet, so take only your best. Dedue, go with her."

"Yes, Your Grace."

"He's going to get a big head if you keep calling him that," Hilda said.

"Going to?" Shamir echoed drily.

Claude turned to Dedue beseechingly. "Do you see what I have to put up with? Hang on, take this with you."

Claude retrieved a letter from an inside pocket, crossed to the desk and quickly added two lines at the bottom before tucking it back into an envelope already addressed to _His Grace Duke Felix Fraldarius_.

Dedue felt his eyes widen. "How did you already know…?"

"I read Annette's letters. I read everyone's mail," Claude said dismissively. Neither Hilda nor Shamir even reacted to this, as if it was totally unremarkable. "We need Felix to follow these instructions exactly. Can you make sure he does that?"

"Tall ask," Shamir said. "What are we doing, exactly?"

"You're going to help us convince Rowe Cornelia's at his doorstep with Felix in hot pursuit and he should open his gates."

"Oooh do I get to be Cornelia?" Hilda asked eagerly.

"Who else? I'll talk to you about the details later. Should be fun." He turned to Shamir and Dedue. "If you're losing, you retreat. If you get captured, you tell them whatever they want to hear. Got it?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Dedue?"

Claude was giving him that clear, challenging look again, the one that made him feel like he had no secrets left.

"I understand," he said eventually, when he felt that it would not be a lie, and Claude nodded, satisfied.

"Come back safe, both of you."

He could feel Claude's gaze still burning a hole in his back as they departed.

*

Dedue understood why Claude hadn't referred to Shamir's group as a battalion when he met them. They would be more properly called spies - or perhaps assassins.

They acted like a mercenary band who'd been together for years. There were a few other Dagdans, a formidable-looking man with tattoos like Petra's, and even a redheaded Srengi woman. The only things they seemed to have in common were their absolute loyalty to Shamir and the same ability to disappear into thin air. They made Dedue feel rather clumsy by comparison.

Shamir at least was the same as she ever was, the simplicity of her regard a comfort.

"Glad you made it," was all she'd said, once they were alone.

"Same to you," Dedue had replied. They spent most of the rest of their journey north comfortably silent.

"An impressive group," Dedue remarked to Shamir after a few days in their company.

"They're the best, like the Duke said. Are you wondering why he sent you along?"

"I am, yes."

"There's always a reason, with Claude. I didn't think he'd make it five months, let alone five years. But he surprised me. Were you busy or did you hear about Airmid?"

"I heard."

A few lordlings and generals eager to curry favour had made incursions into Alliance territory, or at least they'd tried until they stumbled into the terrible trap Claude had set. The very first lost half his men to fire, had the other half taken captive, and the general was never found.

Claude did spare one man. He even let him go back to Enbarr to tell them what had happened. It was said that the man bore no message for the Emperor, because none was needed. After all that, the Emperor herself issued strict orders not to engage the Alliance unless she gave a direct instruction.

"I was there, looking for news of Lady Rhea. It was something." She shook her head as if to clear away the memory. "I don't know why he wanted you along. You should've asked."

Perhaps Claude had counted on Dedue's previous acquaintance with Felix. If so, it was a rare misread. They'd worked well together, and saved each other more than once during the war, but they'd never bridged their very different views of Dimitri's demons.

Felix had raged against Dimitri's excesses and threatened to leave more than once but somehow he'd stayed until it was over, though Dedue could tell that he hated every second.

He couldn't see how a reminder of that time was going to help.

Their scout spotted Felix and his few battalions at Dead Man's Pass, just as Claude said, and Shamir sent one of the scouts ahead with a message.

Felix didn't like being a general and had loudly voiced his distaste of being in charge of soldiers in Dedue's presence more than once, but he was more than adequate at it. By the time Shamir and Dedue came upon him the camp had been largely packed away and was ready to move.

Felix himself was exactly as he'd been in Dedue's memory, lean and sharp as his sword, fierce unhappiness coiled so tightly within himself that it coloured almost every single movement and expression.

His permanent scowl eased somewhat when he recognised Shamir. "Oh, it's you."

"Not a supply run this time. Claude's got a plan."

"I figured," Felix said. He didn't sound half as pissed off about that as Dedue might have expected, which he was going to take as a good sign.

"Look who I brought," Shamir said, and stepped aside.

"Hello, Felix."

Felix's face froze at the sight of Dedue, some intense feeling flashing through those flinty eyes, there and gone before he could identify it.

"It's good you're not dead," he eventually said gruffly.

"Same to you," Dedue said.

"I - you -" Felix shook his head violently, never once looking Dedue in the eye. "Nevermind. What's the plan?"

Whatever Claude had written in his letter prompted Felix to make a sound that was perilously close to laughter, so unexpected even Shamir flinched.

*

Their part in the scheme mainly required them to make a lot of noise and appear to be a much larger and more threatening force than they actually were, a deception helped by the fog that set upon Arianrhod that day which made it impossible to see anything but blurs and light. Dedue had no doubt that Hilda would have spared no expense on her disguise, but she could have easily just pulled on a cloak and passed muster as Cornelia in the mist. 

He wondered if Claude had counted on that, too.

It was once said that Arianrhod, the Silver Maiden, had never been and would never be broken by siege. The only time it had ever changed hands had been by deception, when House Rowe defected to the Kingdom.

Perhaps historians would maintain that it had still never been taken by force, as the Resistance Army poured into the fortress disguised as Cornelia and her followers, with Felix and Dedue seemingly in pursuit. Barsine's Fire Breathers wrought ashes and dust from the castle walls and just as he realised his mistake, Count Rowe fell to a dagger from a man he'd taken to be an Imperial messenger.

By the time Felix and Dedue actually entered Arianrhod, the front gates were wide open and they swept through the remnants of Rowe's army like a howling wind.

At the end of it all, as the sun rose over what remained of the gleaming walls, Claude soared overhead on his enormous white wyvern with the Immortal Corps in formation around him, and the air filled with the cries of wyvern and their riders' cheers.

Dedue was wiping down his axe when a wyvern swooped past carrying Barsine, bloodied and with one arm hanging limp, grinning as if it didn't hurt. She raised her axe in salute; he raised his own in return.

*

Even with the damage wrought by the fighting, Arianrhod was a more comfortable base for the Resistance Army than Garreg Mach could ever be. The Monastery had become a garrison through necessity whereas Arianrhod had been built as a bulwark.

The citizenry had barricaded themselves into their homes impressively quickly at the beginning of the battle and spilled out again just as quickly after Claude sent messengers flying all over with a proclamation signed by Duke Fraldarius, promising that life would go on as normal, no one else would be harmed now that the traitors to the Faerghus Crown had been purged, and moreover that Rowe's punitive, unpopular policies were no more.

"I can't believe that worked," Felix said the next day. "Rowe must've been the most hated man in Faerghus."

They were in a cavernous audience room with plush chairs and a massive tapestry which showed Fodlan as a single undivided empire - as it had been before Loog's rebellion - with a massive eagle standing over the continent. Dedue had noted with a bitter smile that unlike Fodlan before Loog in reality, Duscur was unlabelled and simply part of the whole.

Hilda rolled her eyes from her perch in one of the chairs. "Of course it worked. We just had to use your name."

Felix cast her a startled glance, and then a sharp glare. "You're smarter than you act."

"You know the type, don't you?" Hilda giggled. "Anyway, Dedue was the one who told us about Rowe."

This time Felix glanced at him and glanced away again just as quickly. He was standing with one hand on his sword, radiating discomfort, a far cry from the fierce satisfaction Dedue had seen on him during the battle.

"Maybe we should've listened to you more," Felix said quietly. "I thought Sylvain was crazy to try this, but - we took _Arianrhod_. Hardly any losses."

"Aw, it'll all work out, you'll see. Claude's a good guy. Better than he pretends to be," Hilda said.

Even after all these years, Dedue knew enough to interpret Felix's grunt as agreement. Whatever reaction he'd expected, it wasn't that. He could feel his eyebrows go up.

"He's been supplying us in secret, through the Abyss mercenaries and Shamir's band," Felix muttered.

"Yeah, I know. I don't know why he bothers hiding it," Hilda said.

Dedue thought he could guess. Schemes were to be expected from the Master Tactician. Altruism would arouse far more suspicion.

"Because many among Faerghus nobility are too good to take aid from the likes of me," Claude said evenly, striding into the room and throwing himself into the chair next to Hilda's. "Isn't that right, Felix?"

Felix flushed bright red, although Claude was smiling blandly and sounded the furthest thing from accusatory. "I would've taken it anyway, whatever the old Margrave said."

Claude's lips quirked and suddenly his face looked slightly less like a mask. "Good. Thank you for your help. And with the proclamation too."

"It worked," Felix shrugged. "That's the main thing."

"The people look to you. That's why it worked."

Felix somehow looked even more uncomfortable than before. "I'd rather they didn't."

"Uhhhh, aren't you the highest ranking noble in the Kingdom?" Hilda chirped.

"I don't care about that. I've never wanted it."

That was both true and untrue, Dedue thought. Like Sylvain, Felix felt responsible for the people of his family's territory, far more than any desire for power over them. He might have gotten comfortable with it in time, if it hadn't been for everything that had happened to throw them all off course - the war, Dimitri's apparent death, his resurrection and subsequent drive for vengeance. So many deaths.

"What do you want?" Claude asked, his bright eyes intent on Felix's scowling face. "I assume Sylvain asked before he volunteered you."

"I'm here to fight," Felix said immediately.

Claude nodded. "Sure. I'll take that. I don't need you to swear fealty, but you'll have to follow orders."

"That's fine."

Claude raised his eyebrows. "Is it?"

"You do whatever it takes to win. I like that," Felix said.

It was as polite and complimentary as Dedue had ever heard him, and Claude smiled like he knew it.

"I like you too. As much as I like anyone who's tried to kill me."

Felix snorted. "Had a lot of that, have you?"

"More than you'd think," Claude said evenly.

"Probably not. It's not as if you didn't try to kill me too."

Felix sounded bizarrely unbothered, almost wry, which would have been odd enough even if Dedue didn't remember the incident in question - a poisoned arrow through his shoulder that had neatly taken him out of the fight at Gronder.

Claude's smile widened. "If I'd been _trying_ to kill you, Felix, you'd be dead."

Felix let out a sharp bark of a laugh. "Like Rowe?"

"Something like that. Well done on your invading army act, by the way. Very convincing, both of you."

"Yeah, I was almost scared and I knew you weren't really trying to hunt me down," Hilda said.

"Thank you," Dedue replied dryly.

"Now, what do we know about Viscount Kleiman?" Claude asked, looking between Felix and Dedue.

"Creepy bastard," Felix muttered. "Father always said he was cruel and incompetent."

He barely stumbled over _father_. Dedue did him the favour of pretending not to notice.

"Felix is correct. He has starved the people. The lands are still barren but he insists on collecting the same amounts of grain and produce from farmers as the neighbouring regions. He will be dependent on Rowe and Cornelia for supplies."

"And now we've cut him off at both ends," Claude said, only a little gleefully.

"Mateus and Gideon won't be able to put up much resistance, not to you," Dedue said.

"Then I say we go straight for the throat," Hilda said. "The heart of his territory's over the mountains, isn't it?"

An odd shiver went through Dedue. "You mean Duscur. The land that was Duscur."

"Yes, that does seem like the logical move," Claude said, watching Dedue carefully.

"Not a lot of defences, although he's put some up recently, mainly around the mountains. He's been complacent, relying on Rowe," Felix said.

"Kleiman's castle is at a strategic chokepoint," Dedue said slowly, picturing it in his head, and praying he sounded something close to normal. He hadn't seen the real thing since it had been built, but he'd followed every scrap of news and rumour and committed to memory each of Kleiman's crimes upon the land and the people. "If we can overrun it, the rest should follow."

Claude nodded. "Say, Dedue, are you attached to that castle at all?"

He said it like he was asking about the weather.

"I believe it's his ancestral estate. He had it moved when he was granted the territory," Dedue replied quietly.

He must not have succeeded in keeping all the rancor out of his voice, judging by Claude's wicked grin.

"Gonna take that as a no. Okay. Just checking."

Dedue thought of what the Fire Breathers had done to the stone walls of the fortress city and suppressed a shudder.

"May I - I have a request."

"What is it?"

Dedue took a deep breath. He couldn't shake what he'd heard of the meager accommodations the remaining survivors were squeezed into, their lands confiscated to make way for settlers.

"Don't make the people's suffering worse. There aren't many, but some who were of Duscur still remain."

"You mean like a long, bloody siege? I know." The way Claude looked at him then reminded him of his bare hand on the blade of Dedue's axe. "We can't ravage what remains of Duscur for my sake. I'll think of something. Lure them out."

"Why's he even doing this? He must know he can't hold out against you forever," Felix said contemptuously.

"Some people are very afraid of Fodlan falling under my rule. Imagine!" Claude's smile then was as cold as a Faerghus winter and even Dedue could not help but feel a chill. "They'll fight until their last breath. I wouldn't expect anything less."

He didn't sound bitter or even resigned, but Dedue still recognised something familiar in it. They'd both crammed themselves down to fit into Fodlan's little boxes, and if sometimes it threatened to suffocate Dedue then he could hardly imagine what it did to someone who had to bend himself even further out of shape.

*

Dedue woke to a note slipped under the door of the quarters he'd been assigned in the castle.

> _There's a pot of Four-Spice Tea with your name on it if you come see me this morning._
> 
> _CvR_

Dedue had no doubt the phrasing of the note was deliberate. If Claude meant to order Dedue's attendance, he would have done it. So not war business, or not entirely. But surely it wasn't just an invitation to tea, either. It was Claude, after all.

He wasn't even surprised that Claude knew his favourite tea. That seemed trivial given everything else he'd seen.

When Dedue realised he was dithering over a one line note like a blushing maiden, he went to find Claude.

Claude had claimed some of Rowe's rooms for his quarters while he had the rest searched. Dedue dodged two separate groups of tradesmen and scholars turning various rooms upside down before he spotted the willowy redhead who served as Claude's personal guard standing before a set of ornate doors.

"Lord Molinaro, good morning."

"The Duke asked me to come," Dedue said.

"He's still meditating, sir, but he asked me to let you in."

Before Dedue could protest she opened the door, ushered him in, and closed it behind him.

Dedue's first impression was that a storm had gone through the place. Books and papers were littered over every inch of the floor and every surface.

The room would once have been an impressive space for Rowe to deal with matters of state, with a massive desk, large, ornate windows and high ceiling. What it definitely had not been was any kind of place to sleep, not that it seemed to have stopped Claude. There was a pile of sheepskin and bearskin rugs laid out in front of the fireplace, surrounded by yet more books.

Claude was seated cross-legged on the rugs, nestled next to another pile of furs and blankets. His eyes opened the moment Dedue set foot inside.

"Ah, there you are. I steeped the tea before - it should be ready now."

Dedue spared a moment to be amused by his own predictability, how easily Claude read him down to the timing, and another at the sight of Claude making his way across the room as if there were no obstacles littered all over the floor at all, effortlessly light on his feet.

"Please, sit. Make yourself at home."

Dedue sat, although he first had to carefully pull out his chair so as to not disturb any books. "You certainly have."

Claude grinned, totally unabashed. "Isn't it great when they write their nefarious schemes down? Unfortunately it is all coded, so it's going to take some time to figure out. I want to know how far he was involved with the Agarthans."

As he spoke he closed various books and stacked them and shifted papers into piles, clearing a space in the middle of the desk. This done, he poured them both cups of tea and pushed one toward Dedue.

"You don't take sugar, do you."

It wasn't really a question, and Dedue didn't treat it as one. He tried a sip and was unsurprised to find it exactly how he liked it - strong but not overwhelming.

"This is good. Thank you."

"I hear you're getting along well with the Corps," Claude said, eyeing him over the rim of his tea cup.

"They have been welcoming."

Claude, of course, heard everything unsaid in that statement.

"That's something. The rest we'll have to work on."

"It is already more than I could have imagined, to see Almyrans fighting alongside those of the Alliance."

Before this war, he would have bet on never living to see such a sight. It was far from perfect - he'd already seen more than a few squabbles and fights, although the Corps itself seemed mostly immune, having defined themselves by their devotion to a man rather than a country - but it was something.

Claude beamed. "That's just the beginning. But it's nice to have your perspective. Have you noticed anything odd about the new quartermaster?"

Dedue covered his surprise by taking a long sip of his tea.

"I have not."

He'd hardly noticed the man. Which was possibly precisely the point.

"He's a spy," Claude said casually. "Kleiman's, I think. If we let him know there's a big supply shipment going through Gideon, do you think Kleiman will be desperate enough to hit it?"

"Give him a week. Yes."

"Which leaves his territory lightly defended. While he's doing that I can go with the Corps across Mateus. If we travel by night we won't be detected. Shouldn't be much of a fight in Duscur itself, then. Like I said - the people won't suffer for my sake. I promise. What do you think?"

Claude rested his chin on his steepled fingers and smiled sharp as a knife edge, and Dedue suddenly found it hard to breathe.

It took him a moment to find words. "What is it they call you? I understand now."

Claude winced. "The Master Tactician. Yeah. You know how I got that name?"

"Airmid."

That single word was sufficient. Claude ran a hand over his face and for the briefest moment looked as tired as Dedue sometimes felt.

"Where I'm from, you get titles for your deeds, but they're meant to be heroic. I devised a way to inflict as crushing a defeat as possible. Which is a fancy way to say kill a lot of people very fast. It's a nasty thing to be feted for, don't you think?"

He was no longer smiling. The look in his eyes was at once intensely present and calculating, and Dedue realised abruptly that this was as close as anyone got to seeing Claude unguarded, when he didn't care to hide. Dedue had started thinking of it as his real face.

"I am glad you feel that way."

Claude's mouth twitched. "Do you know why I sent you to meet Felix?"

"Because he trusts me," Dedue guessed. Whatever else he could say about their relationship, that much was true.

Claude held up a finger. "Close. That's one reason. Did he even ask why I wanted him to do anything?"

"No."

"Did he ever look you in the eye?"

"A few times," Dedue said reluctantly, finally starting to understand.

Claude nodded. "You see it, don't you? He was never going to question any plan you brought."

"Because of…what happened to me. And what happened at Gronder."

What an odd man Felix was, to feel so strongly and deny it so fiercely. In his own way he was as beholden to the chivalric codes he so hated as Ingrid.

"Yes. And he likes Shamir. She doesn't make him feel any complicated feelings."

Dedue had to bite back something that might have been a smile at that.

Of course none of it had been simple or coincidental. Still Claude stared at him expectantly, oddly reminding him of Byleth at her most patient and professortorial.

"You were testing me," Dedue said slowly.

"No. Not like you think. I wanted to show you how I work. Make sure you know what you're getting into."

A miscalculation at last, to think that Dedue needed such a thing. He wasn't the type to second guess, not with something this important.

"I already did."

Claude's lips parted in a soft exhale. "That's - good. I'm glad. I don't want you to have any illusions about this. About me."

It was as close to flustered as Dedue had ever seen him, and it made him seem much younger. Not the too-polished boy he'd been, but someone Dedue might have known.

"You're not what I expected."

"Yeah, well, you never gave me the time of day, back at the Monastery." The smile Claude gave him was oddly sweet.

"Maybe I was wrong," Dedue admitted.

"No, I don't think you were."

The morning light cast shadows over the sharp angles of Claude's profile. He could've been carved from stone, but for those eyes that could convey everything and nothing and make a man believe or want or be persuaded into outrageous things.

For the briefest moment, they were filled with loneliness so familiar to Dedue that he felt an echoing pang.

He realised then what he needed to do to make Claude understand his vow. It was so obvious he should've seen it when Claude raised the idea.

"You need a lure, for your plan."

"Yes."

"Use me."

Claude's eyes widened almost imperceptibly, a tell that might as well have been a shout. "Are you sure."

Dedue was suddenly very sure. "It's what you want, isn't it?"

Claude licked his lips. "You know what it means, if you do this. It'll be dangerous. You won't know what's happening until it happens."

"When I made a vow, I put myself in your hands."

Claude stared at him like a starving man at a feast, just a split second before he wiped his face clean of anything but fondness.

"So you did. All right. I think our spy is about to overhear some vital information about a supply shipment headed by the Duke's trusted confidant."

*

Over the next week Claude made sure he was overheard speaking about the shipment heading through Gideon, all the while Dedue worked with Shamir's group on the so-called supplies, and Hilda disappeared outright, along with almost the entire Immortal Corps for destinations unknown.

When the time came for him to play his part, leading a lightly guarded train of supply wagons through the valleys of Gideon, with a band of soldiers dressed as merchants all acting about as conspicuously as they could and leaving tracks everywhere, Dedue felt none of the expected anxiety.

All he had to worry about was making sure they'd be attacked, and Claude would handle the rest.

On the third day, he did start to worry, but that night at the designated hour he saw the light of a torch flash three times from up on the hills, just as he'd agreed with Shamir. Kleiman and his men fell upon them within the hour, and Dedue was ready when they did.

In the torchlight Kleiman's face looked nothing like the snarling giant of a bogeyman Dedue remembered from that terrible day. He was just an unpleasant old man in ill-fitting armour, who stared at Dedue with contempt and no hint of recognition.

A small man, whose only power lay in the masses at his back.

"Let's make this easy. Leave the wagons, surrender and you'll live."

Whatever reaction he'd expected, it probably had not been laughter. "No."

Dedue gave the signal and cherished the look of surprise on the man's face when his soldiers lit the wagons, stuffed full of hay and sulfur, and Shamir's group rained arrows down the hill from their hidden perch and Felix and his battalion came roaring down the hill.

He saw the moment Kleiman's surprise turned to realisation and terror. "It's a trap! Retreat!" He turned his horse and began making for the more expansive spaces up the valley, where the flames had not yet reached.

With his heavy armour, there was no way Dedue could catch up. He unstrapped his tomahawk and let it fly; it tore into the flank of Kleiman's horse. Kleiman rolled away and scrambled to his feet as his mount buckled, already running at speed.

Dedue wanted to give chase with every fibre of his being. But he also had his duty, and his promise. Next to that, vengeance was not as important.

He tore himself away and turned back to the battle.

*

After that, it became a rout.

The clean-up took about as long as the battle, and then they were off through Mateus to Duscur, tracing the route Claude and Hilda had taken covertly while they'd been baiting Kleiman.

"No word from the Army?" Dedue asked Shamir as they made their way over the mountains. His heart was hammering louder at every small glimpse of the plains beyond. It had been so many years since he last set foot in Duscur, and not a day had gone by when he didn't think of _home_ with a pang of anguish and fury and longing.

"Not yet," Shamir replied. She spoke in her usual bland tone, but the look she cast him was softer than her usual. "They'll be busy. We'll know when we get there."

"We'll take it ourselves if we have to," Felix added gruffly, not looking at Dedue.

If even Felix could tell - if even Felix was trying in his own way to calm him down - Dedue took a deep breath and tried to gather himself.

In the end he needn't have worried. The crest of flames flew from the battlements of the pathetic monument Kleiman had planted in the soil of Duscur.

Dedue let out a relieved breath, and another when a small gold draped figure appeared at the top. The figure whistled, the sound so piercing that it carried over the air to Dedue, and he wasn't surprised when an enormous white wyvern soared overhead, landed on the battlements and barely paused before it took flight again.

Claude didn't even wait for his wyvern to touch the ground; he flipped down in mid-air, almost bouncing on the balls of his feet as he landed right in front of Dedue.

"I think, all things considered, you should get to do this properly." He held his hand out. Streaks of blood dotted the black and gold of his riding armour and his cheeks were flushed with windburn. In the blazing sunlight, his green eyes were flecked with gold, almost glowing, and he was barely smiling, but Dedue felt the warmth in those eyes hook on something tender and vital inside him and pull. "C'mon, we can skip the line. After you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: a homecoming.


	3. Duscur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A homecoming and a road trip.

Dedue often dreamed of his family. His memories of them had not blurred with time; if anything he saw their faces more sharply than ever.

Sometimes the dreams were of his memories of the Calamity, and on those nights he cursed the clarity of his recollection, that he could still remember it all after all this time: his father's scream, the soot and smoke and stench of death, the warmth of Dimitri's blood on his face as he stood over Dedue, shielding him with his body.

He preferred the other dreams, mostly memories of his family as Dedue liked to remember them, whole and happy.

_When he'd been a small child, he'd overreached while balancing on a stool and knocked over his mother's treasure, an intricately patterned urn she always handled with absolute delicacy._

_She'd come to them from a pottery and textiles town and this was one of the few things that had come with her when she married his father._

_Your grandfather made this for me to remember him by, she'd told him, and knowing that made him feel even worse as he kneeled and tried to gather up the pieces before anyone saw. He thought about Mama's disappointed face and felt the tears well up, and that was how she found him._

_She didn't look disappointed, or even surprised. She just hugged him._

_"I'm so sorry, Mama."_

_"It's okay."_

_"I - I know it's special, I didn't mean to - "_

_"It's okay, I know." She kissed his forehead. "No use dwelling on it, hmm? Let's make it better."_

_"How?"_

_"We can glue it back together. I'll teach you."_

_They worked on it for weeks, her big steady hands guiding his smaller ones._

_When they were finished it didn't look anything close to the same, with the big cracks running through it, but when he got upset at it she just smiled._

_"I still think it's beautiful, don't you?"_

Dedue's family was gone. Duscur had been razed to the ground. But he was still here.

Many years ago, he'd vowed to put it back together with his own two hands if need be, no less beautiful than it had been before. That promise was the only thing that carried him through the years and moments when he was a hollow shell of nothing but grief and anger.

The dream had itself shattered at Gronder Field, only to be put back within his reach when he'd least expected it.

*

Dedue hadn't set eyes on the real Duscur for a very long time. Not his tiny hometown, and certainly not what had once been Faras, the glittering pride and centerpiece of Duscur.

It was nothing like the burnt out husk of his nightmares. That was the first thing that struck him from his vantage point atop Kleiman's castle - alongside and hidden among the shiny new settler cottages built upon the ashes of former marketplaces and temples and meeting houses, there were unmistakably still Duscuran settlements, some patched up remnants of the time before, others new simple wooden structures built in the circular style native to Faras.

Dedue felt tears well up and didn't bother to blink them away.

 _We're still here_ , he thought wonderingly, and smiled. _Despite it all, we're still here._

"There's the smile I wanted to see," Claude murmured from beside him.

Dedue tore his eyes away from the plains. Claude was still in his elaborate, shining riding armour, now torn and stained by the marks of battle; a streak of blood cut across his chest through the v of his collar, smeared by a casual, hurried attempt at wiping it away. Failnaught loomed, pulsing, from where it was strapped to his back. Despite it all he managed to look almost childishly delighted.

It was a little overwhelming to be the focus of that attention - Dedue felt his face heat up and looked away, directing his next words at the view of Faras.

"I - thank you for all that you have done. It means more than you know."

His voice came out hoarse.

Somehow, despite their bargain, he hadn't imagined this.

Claude shook his head. "Don't thank me, I don't deserve it yet."

That said, he gave a jaunty wave and walked off, leaving Dedue with the afterimage of his enigmatic smile.

*

Dedue made his way through Faras in something of a daze.

Even the narrow, hostile glances directed his way by the few settlers brave enough to be out and about felt different here. To them he was just another Duscuran, not worthy of notice, not a source of alarm or fear or curiosity. There was something oddly restful in even that.

He passed a few patrols of soldiers wearing the crest of flames who didn't give him a second glance either.

In the morning light a few Duscuran merchants bustled around the town square, setting up for the day. The fruit and vegetable and hot food stalls were all empty still, but soon the market was alive with other stalls selling everything from spices and knick knacks to flowers.

On impulse, Dedue stopped and bought a packet of incense. The wizened-looking old merchant took one look at his armour and refused payment, and Dedue could hardly argue and show the appropriate deference to an elder. He compromised by sneaking gold pieces into the old man's wicker basket.

He thanked the man profusely and was casting about for an appropriate spot up the river to say a few prayers when he spotted the sign on the seedlings stall, scrawled in Duscuran.

_Native Lilies, ready for planting!_

Claude's single, pressed flower, the lone survivor of the siege of Garreg Mach, still lived in his satchel. Just thinking of it brought to mind Claude's eyes glinting in the greenhouse, the ease with which he'd demanded _I want to see a whole field of these_.

He'd started believing it then, hadn't he? It was impossible not to. And here they were.

Dedue went up to the young flower seller and bought out half her stock.

*

By the river, beside a boatless pier, he found an altar. It was not much more than a raised patch of earth, shaped by careful and skilled hands, nothing like the elaborate stone etched structure that would have stood somewhere like this for travellers to leave their offerings in Faras before.

Dedue lit the incense and knelt.

He'd come by a dark and winding path but he'd made it: they'd taken Duscur back from Kleiman and he was going to erase that man's name from every map and signpost if it took until his last breath.

_There's still so much to do, but I'm here. Mother, Father, Ren, Dimitri - I'm here._

"Blessings upon their memory," a new voice rasped behind him in Duscuran, spoken with the perfect elocution of a priest or a scholar.

Dedue dusted himself off, stood and bowed to the newcomer.

"Thank you, Elder."

For that was what she clearly was, even dressed in simple, rough-woven robes - not just an older Duscuran worthy of his respect but a leader of his people. She wore the gold-streaked shawl of a council member. Her face was lined with age, her hair tied up in a neat silver bun, brown eyes terribly sharp on his face.

"My name is Amesemi. I lead the council of elders here in Faras."

"It's a honour," Dedue said. "Dedue Molinaro." He hesitated. "Formerly of Iken."

That he hadn't said out loud since the Calamity. There seemed to be no point when Iken no longer existed.

"Ah, yes. I've heard of you," Amesemi said, so evenly that he couldn't tell whether her next words would be condemnation or praise. Her face had settled into sternness, but the lines around her mouth hinted at the potential for a wide smile. He could picture her laughing. "Did you ever see it? Faras before?"

"Yes. It was beautiful."

The day of the Calamity had been only Dedue's third time in Faras, and beyond the blood and smoke he still remembered in snatches his amazement at the bustling marketplace, the golden meeting halls and temples.

"It was. Do you remember what was behind us?"

Dedue closed his eyes and tried to reach beyond the red-tinged haze. "Was it a temple?"

He could still see its simple, elegant lines, the spire reaching up to the sky in glimpses behind his eyelids. A sparkling new row of cottages in the sturdy Faerghus style had replaced it.

"I was here when Kleiman's men took down the remains, you know. They had to beat me to get me away before they could start."

He'd been right about her smile.

"We will rebuild it," Dedue said, in lieu of throwing himself at her feet.

She shook her head. "Right now, we need houses and farmland before we need temples, Dedue Molinaro. Don't you look at me like that. The Calamity is written in our blood. None of us will ever forget. But our people are stronger than steel, stronger than gold. We'll still be here after these settler buildings crumble to dust."

He was living proof of that, wasn't he? Him and Amesemi and Menhit the healer and the girl who'd sold him those flower seeds and the merchant in Enbarr and the rebel fighters of the Vanguard who'd saved his life all those years ago. It was up to them now to put it all right again.

"What can I do?"

"Now you're getting it. We could use someone like you here. If you want to stay," Amesemi said.

His heart leapt - _yes, of course that's what I want_ \- and then he remembered Cornelia and her army, coiled and waiting in Fhirdiad, and Claude, looking up at him over his axe.

"Thank you. I cannot until the war is won. But after that - if you would have me, I will gladly lend what strength I can," he said with a deep bow.

Amesemi inclined her head with as much grace and bearing as any Fodlani noble. "Good. Let's - hm. Is that one of yours?"

It was in fact one of Claude's messengers clad in black and yellow. She bowed unhurriedly to both of them, which immediately raised her in his estimation.

"My lady. Lord Molinaro. The Duke requests your presence."

"Both of us?" Amesemi said, amused.

"Both of you, at your leisure."

"Well, we better not keep the next emperor of all Fodlan waiting."

Dedue instinctively wanted to argue against that designation - it didn't feel right, somehow. Not that Claude's ambitions were lesser in scope. Somehow he had the sneaking suspicion they were greater than such a title could encompass.

The man in question stood to greet them as they were ushered into an office he'd borrowed from a tea merchant operating out of the biggest new building in town. He'd finally changed out of the riding armour and back into Riegan regalia and looked a lot more like his usual buttoned up, gracious and yet inscrutable self.

"Your Grace. This is Elder Amesemi, leader of the Faras council."

Claude shot him a crooked smile before turning to his companion.

"Thanks for coming. Please sit. Sorry I couldn't come greet you sooner, Elder."

"Why would you do that? I'm just an old woman," Amesemi said. She sat in the offered chair like it was a throne, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to stand behind her, guarding her back.

"You don't look a day over 25," Claude grinned.

"At least make your lies believable," Amesemi returned, quick as a flash, although Dedue thought he saw the corner of her mouth twitch like she wanted to smile. "You risk sounding like one of those Faerghus nobles."

Claude's nose wrinkled and he put on a look of great and terrible offence. "Urgh, no, I definitely don't want that. Speaking of which, I asked Dedue and he didn't give me a straight answer, so: are you particularly fond of that eyesore of a castle? I can't say I am."

"The council will decide what happens to Kleiman's keep. Not you," Amesemi said firmly. "If you want to help, then get Kleiman's men out of Duscur and get us all our land back from Faerghus."

Easier said than done. Dedue thought, grimacing, of the settler homes and farms. And what would their Eastern Faerghus allies, the final remnants of the old Kingdom, agree to? He couldn't see Claude riding roughshod over them, not when he needed their help.

There were no clues to be found on Claude's face, of course, just his habitual smile.

"Noted. I do just want to help, I hope you know that."

Dedue examined himself for doubt and found to his satisfaction that he had none in Claude's words. Amesemi on the other hand was more than entitled to hers; she knew exactly what she was asking and how difficult it was, and he couldn't imagine demanding faith from someone who had to be sick and tired of broken promises and betrayal.

"Duke Riegan, I'm not ungrateful for what you did," Amesemi said. "I've just heard it all before. If you really do want to support us, it'll have to be what we want. Not what you want. Or else we're just swapping one yoke for another."

"Ah. Yes. You're right, of course," Claude said quickly. "I wouldn't do that."

"Maybe you wouldn't, but what about the next duke or king who comes along?" Amesemi demanded.

Claude opened his mouth; closed it again, deflated. "...Point taken."

Dedue bit back a smile; he'd witnessed Claude's ease with all manner of authority at Garreg Mach and faced him across a battlefield. In all that time he'd never seen him so agreeable, borderline sheepish.

"I'll prove it to you," Claude said finally, leaning forward with his elbows on the tabletop, hands clasped in front of him. "For now, is there anything else you want me to know?"

Amesemi smiled at his careful phrasing like a teacher at a promising student.

"First we need food. Kleiman took everything from us to feed his army and squeezed us for even more when Rowe stopped supplying."

Claude nodded. "Of course. I'll arrange for shipments from Arianrhod."

"That'll take time."

"What kind of timeframe do you need?"

"A few more days of your standoff and we'd have starved."

Claude winced.

"What about our own supplies?" Dedue interjected.

Claude tilted his head, considering. "All right. I'll talk to the quartermaster and see what we can spare."

"Thank you. This will go a long way to establishing some trust."

Claude and Amesemi leaned back in unison and broke into oddly similar smiles and it suddenly became easier to breathe.

"Everyone told me you were the one to talk to, Elder," Claude said. "I see they were right. Anhur asked after you too."

"Anhur?" Dedue echoed, surprised.

He hadn't heard that name in a long time, not since the Vanguard saved his life. They weren't the type to stick around and talk to the powers that be, especially in Faerghus where the leaders of the group were all wanted men.

Amesemi's reaction was less circumspect. "That idiot's still here?"

"We're lucky he was. His group killed half the city guards and opened the castle gates for us when they saw our banner," Claude said, directing his words at Dedue. He raised his voice. "Let him in, Alessia."

Anhur strode in like he owned the place, still in full plate armour. He bowed to Amesemi and nodded his head at Claude. "Elder. Duke Riegan." He did a visible double-take at Dedue. "Molinaro."

"Idiot nephew," Amesemi returned wryly.

Anhur's stone-etched face had become no less forbidding with the passing of time; if anything, the addition of a long scar across his cheek and a burn mark on his neck had made him even more fearsome. Not that Claude seemed to notice.

"Thank you for waiting. I didn't say thank you, before, so let me say it now. You were a great help."

"Remember this day when you come to decide the fate of these lands," Anhur said. He didn't smile back. "Duscur is ours by right. We'll never stop fighting to take it back, by whatever means necessary, whether it's from you or those Faerghus butchers."

Amesemi snorted. "Hush, idiot nephew."

Claude made a face. "I'll just pretend I didn't hear the second half of that. You know Dedue? He's the other half of how we routed Kleiman without a long, tedious siege."

"Brother. I misjudged you," Anhur said quietly.

"You did not," Dedue replied. Even as they saved his life, the members of the Vanguard had made it very clear what they thought of Dedue's choices. He had never been their enemy, even when he'd been part of a Kingdom force sent to put down their insurrection, and he'd given up hope of them ever understanding that years ago. "See that you do not threaten the peace here. Remember that I know your faces."

Anhur stared at him for a long, still moment without a word before turning back to Amesemi.

"Elder, we give you our word that we will not disturb the peace while we are here."

Amesemi nodded sharply. "Good. I can still kick your ass. Duke Riegan, I need to go yell at my nephew some more. If you want to talk to the council, send me a message. Better yet, send this one." She raised an arm and knocked her fist against Dedue's armour-covered arm.

Dedue didn't bother fighting his smile as he strode over to open the door for her.

After he'd seen Amesemi and Anhur out, he returned to find Claude wearing a rueful grin.

"She reminds me of my mother. In a good way. Mostly."

Dedue's own mother smiled a lot more effusively. He'd seen glimpses of steel, too, but mostly he remembered her overwhelming kindness, and how it bent the world around her.

Maybe if she had lived she'd be all steel now, too.

"Faras is in good hands," he said finally.

"This Vanguard. What do you know about them? Should I be worried?"

The Vanguard were the anger of the Duscuran people, and to be that they had become resourceful and relentless and unafraid of suffering or even death. They'd made themselves into formidable, hardened warriors from a group of former smiths and painters and chefs. Even with all that experience and determination, though, they were no army, and not nearly a match for someone like Claude.

For all their faults, and all Dedue's disagreements with their methods, it was far better for them to exist than not. Dedue weighed his next words carefully.

"I know Anhur. The group has been active in these parts for a long time. They fight for the restoration of Duscur."

Claude eyed him like he'd heard the part Dedue didn't say.

"That seems all right. I'll order them left alone. How's that?"

"You heard Elder Amesemi. Some would gladly see them disbanded. They have...enemies, among the people," Dedue said.

Claude raised an eyebrow. "So do you, I imagine, so that doesn't say much. Don't worry, I'm not going to attack them unless your council asks me to."

Pretending or talking around an issue in front of Claude was about as effective as trying to cover fire with paper. Dedue should've known better, really.

"I doubt they will."

"Good. I really, really don't want to kill Duscurans. Not after what I've seen here."

There was a knock at the door, followed by a pause and two more knocks, and then Hilda poked her head in.

"You okay? Can I come in?"

"Yes, of course. I thought you were taking the day off. What's going on?" Claude asked.

Hilda slammed the door closed behind her and strode over to them, boots clicking, putting on quite a huff.

"I was, but you know how they always ask for me when there's an urgent scout report from Leicester. Those stupid Agarthans just don't know when to quit."

Claude sat bolt upright, the indulgent little smile wiped off his face. "What? Where?"

"Gloucester, heading toward Derdriu. Not sure how many of them." Hilda put a hand on Claude's arm as he scrambled for pen and paper. "It's okay, I already got a message off to Lorenz."

Claude's brow furrowed in a way Dedue was already starting to recognise. He wasn't skeptical, just unhappy with what reality had presented him with, and already trying to figure out a way around it. "Will you ride out and deal with them, Hilda, my precious delicate flower? It'd be so inconvenient if Lorenz died."

"Urgh, I knew you'd say that. Guess I should go save him."

Claude grinned. "Just for old time's sake. Give Holst my best if you see him."

Hilda's face went blank for an instant as he said her brother's name; whatever it was it transformed back into her usual ingratiating, teasing smile so fast Dedue couldn't be sure of what he'd seen. "I won't, it'll only encourage his stupid crush. Don't have too much fun without me."

Claude stood up, came around the table and hefted her off the ground with the force of his embrace.

"Hey, hey, watch it," Hilda giggled. "Put me down before you drop me."

Claude obliged, only loosening his hold enough to look her in the eye. "Remember. If you get into trouble, you run. That's an order."

"Got it, Leader Man. You take care too." She stood on tiptoes, kissed him on the cheek, and gave him one last squeeze before turning to Dedue. "Hey, Dedue? Make sure Claude doesn't get killed, okay?"

"I - of course."

She'd said it with her usual sugary sweet tone and a smile to match, but the look in her eyes was that of the Hilda he'd last seen on the back of a wyvern.

*

The next morning Claude asked him to escort a convoy of food supplies from the army camp to the council meeting hall. Escort was he suspected a pretense; the town was crawling with soldiers and the supplies were in no danger. Claude just wanted to send Dedue Amesemi's way.

"He's an interesting young man, that Duke Riegan," Amesemi said, as she supervised the cataloguing and distribution of the carts. "I didn't think they made nobles like that. Do you trust him?"

Dedue didn't need to think. "I do."

"As much as you trusted the King?"

"The two situations are not comparable," Dedue said carefully.

His belief in Dimitri had been forged in blood, in the moment they'd been the only thing in each other's world that wasn't horror.

Claude had a lofty, impossible dream he'd decided to include Dedue in. What had made him that way was a mystery he suspected no one in Fodlan could solve.

*

Dedue returned from the meeting hall with his heart as light as it had ever been. The food situation was as dire as Amesemi had said, and the desperation and uncertainty he saw in some faces tore at him. Even so, it felt like the start of something better just to be able to gather openly, in numbers and without fear, to hear Duscuran spoken in whispers and shouts like it was nothing remarkable.

Claude listened to his brief report with rapt attention, scribbling notes as he went.

"Is that everything?"

Dedue nodded. "The council asked me to convey their regards. If you wish to visit our meeting hall, they would gladly receive you."

"I appreciate it, and I will - when my army's not on their doorstep. Maybe Elder Amesemi'll like me better then."

Dedue felt his mouth twitch. "She likes you fine."

"Ooh, was that a smile I just saw?"

"I will neither confirm nor deny."

Claude rested his chin on his steepled hands and grinned up at Dedue. "I want to show you something. Say, how are you with wyverns?"

Dedue had his standard self-deprecating response at the tip of his tongue - _animals have never taken to me_ \- and swallowed it back, unable to bear the thought of dampening Claude's evident enthusiasm.

It would be more accurate to say that they made him nervous, anyway.

"Inexperienced, I'm afraid."

That at least wasn't the wrong answer; Claude leapt to his feet with the twinkle in his eyes fully intact. He was dressed in a less elaborate version of his riding armour with all the pauldrons, cape and guards removed and looked less like the leader of a country and more like a dashing rogue from a fanciful adventure novel.

"No time like the present. Come on."

Kleiman's meager stables were grossly insufficient for the riders of the Resistance Army, even in their currently reduced numbers without Hilda or Cyril's battalions. Housing the wyvern of the Immortal Corps alone created quite a problem, or so Claude explained to him as they made their way to the makeshift open air stables.

Claude's wyvern seemed to have an inordinate amount of clear space to itself compared to any of others, even in repose, curled in on itself and slightly - _slightly_ \- less fearsome than usual.

Dedue had never seen a white one until he saw Claude's. He wondered if they were often killed young in the wild.

The wyvern master was a haunty Almyran he'd overheard several of the Corps complain about. Not that any of that attitude was present as he started toward them, transparently relieved to see Claude.

"Your Grace! Thank the gods. She's restless. Tried to bite my head off three times this morning."

True to his words, his robes were ripped and torn across the front, although he didn't seem to be in pain.

Claude clapped him on the shoulder. "What did I tell you? Leave her to me, she'll eat you before she lets you near. You got the double-saddle on, though, well done." While the man spluttered, he took two more steps and patted the wyvern's neck. "Hey, sweetheart, did you miss me? You did, didn't you. It's okay."

The wyvern uncurled blindingly fast and Dedue found himself taking a step forward - to shield Claude or pull him away, he wasn't sure, but all it did was nuzzle him aggressively.

Claude made a sound suspiciously close to a giggle. "Hey, stop it, you're drooling on my nice clothes. Mandana, Dedue. Dedue, Mandana."

Mandana's great unblinking gold eyes regarded him balefully.

"She seems - nice," Dedue managed.

"She imprinted on me as a baby. Won't let anyone else touch her. Doesn't get along with any of the other wyvern, either - that's why she's got so much space. It's nothing to do with me."

Claude unstrapped the bow and quiver from his back as he spoke and clipped them to Mandana's side. Behind him, the wyvern master mouthed _she's evil_ at Dedue and he had to suppress a startled laugh.

"Come on, you're going to have to get better acquainted than that," Claude said. There was something of a dare in his tone and the curve of his smile, so Dedue steeled himself, took another step closer, and remembering scraps of what Seteth had tried to teach them all those years ago, offers his hand, palm flat.

"Don't you dare bite him," Claude whispered into Mandana's shining scales, and Dedue's face must've been a picture before he got it under control, because Claude had said it in Almyran.

It was one thing to suspect and another to know.

Then it turned out he needn't have bothered trying not to look surprised, because Mandana decided to steal Claude's thunder and bump her snout against Dedue's arm, almost gently.

"She likes you!" Claude exclaimed. He looked like Dedue had handed him the keys to Fhirdiad. "She doesn't like anyone. You must be pretty special."

"Perhaps I caught her on a good day."

Claude snorted. "She bit _Cyril_. Just take the compliment." He vaunted up to the saddle with absurd ease. "C'mon. This time you'll even be conscious for the experience."

Dedue climbed on with a lot more care. Even without his heavy plate it felt precarious. He fancied he could feel each breath Mandana took, every twitch of her body. Then there was the problem of where to put his hands.

Without the extra adornments and the bulk of his Riegan regalia, Claude's back seemed far too narrow for the weight he carried. Or maybe Dedue was only realising it now because Claude always left his back guarded, and was never to be found in a position where he could be taken unaware by someone close enough to see the fine, jagged scar at the nape of his neck and smell the oil in his hair, a subtle fragrance that made Dedue think of the depths of a forest.

Dedue flexed his hands and left them hanging uselessly at his side.

"I - Are you sure that's an improvement?"

Claude turned back and shot him a toothy grin before facing forward again. "I'm just teasing. I won't let you fall - there's a harness, see?"

There was indeed a harness, which he'd never seen before on any of the war wyverns.

"I feel somewhat coddled," Dedue muttered even as he clipped it around himself

"Well, don't. It's meant to be comfortable. Put your arms around me. I promise not to do any flips in mid air. Just this once."

"Please don't," Dedue said. He could encircle Claude's waist with his arms easily with room to spare, and this was absolutely not the time to examine how _that_ made him feel. He was just going to not think about that.

Claude laughed, a clear ringing laugh that made him sound like a boy, and then Mandana opened her great wings with a snap and they were off, and Dedue didn't have enough breath in his lungs. His arms tightened inadvertently around Claude's waist, pulling him right up against the warmth and solidarity of Claude's back, and he suddenly remembered in greater clarity the last time he'd felt the same overwhelming sense of security.

Claude's arms had been around him, then. He hadn't known whether he was alive or dead or dreaming. Just that he had done his duty and he was safe. And Claude had said, his voice oddly choked -

_"You're not going to die, not when we just met again. So hang in there."_

"You okay?" Claude asked teasingly.

Dedue could feel his face heat up and hastily tried to loosen his hold, only for Claude's hand to land on top of his and hold it there.

"I am fine," he managed, when he could trust his voice.

"Look down."

"Should you not be telling me the opposite?"

"No. Look down."

Dedue braced himself - Claude's hand tightened reassuringly on top of his - and did. The plains stretched out under them, barren lands and rolling fields bisected by the Blue Lily and bordered by a few gentle dipping valleys.

His breath caught.

"Quite a sight, isn't it?" Claude said. He didn't seem to expect a reply, which was fortunate as Dedue couldn't have managed one. "Let's take a closer look."

His command of Mandana was almost magical - certainly it didn't seem as though it required any words or even visible gestures on his part before her wings flared and she glided down toward one of the valleys slightly north of Faras.

Like most of the valleys in Duscur, it was sparsely populated by greenery, although the soil was not as bone-dry as Dedue would have expected from the air. Patches of weeds had sprouted. Positively arable by their standards.

Claude only let go of him to guide Mandana into a smooth landing, which prompted Dedue to remember how his arms worked and unwind them from around Claude's waist.

Claude front-flipped off Mandana and landed bouncing on the balls of his feet like he was expecting to be graded for style, only for her to butt her head against him in rebuke.

"Hey! None of that. Honestly, wyverns have no sense of style."

"I appreciated it," Dedue said drily.

" _Thank_ you, I'm glad someone around here does." Claude sketched a little bow. "Mandana, down," he said in Almyran, and sure enough she knelt for Dedue to dismount.

He gave her a cautious pat in thanks and she snorted at him before curling up right there on one of the bigger patches of grass.

Claude turned to him with an expectant look, colour high on his cheeks from the wind.

"So. What do you think? Good place for those flowers?"

_When did you find this? Do you sleep?_

"Yes, I imagine so," Dedue replied, having discarded his first two responses and worked through the lump in his throat.

"Great! I meant what I said, you know. I'll be visiting to see them."

That sounded oddly final. Surely Claude didn't think - but maybe he did.

"I intend to leave with you when you set out for Fhirdiad. Did I not make myself clear?"

"I just...didn't want to assume," Claude said quietly, looking anywhere but at Dedue.

He had hoped, perhaps, but never even asked when he could have ordered. Dedue felt a pang in his chest.

"You should. I made you a promise."

"That wasn't - you're not obliged. I hope you don't feel obliged."

Obligation was the least of what he felt. Gratitude, yes. A desire to repay a great boon carelessly granted. And - he might as well admit it to himself if no one else - it was impossible not to be drawn to the Claude beneath the facade, who he'd first seen in glimpses; the man who slept with half a library worth of books, who looked tired and lonely when he thought no one could see it, who took the time to find a valley for Dedue's flowers.

Who could blame him for wanting to prolong it for just a little longer? He was allowed this, surely. Not to keep, of course not, but at least to borrow for a while.

"I do not feel obliged," Dedue said in a low voice, not trusting himself with more. Claude looked up at him with wide eyes like he might have heard the rest, and for once Dedue was the one desperately scrambling to fill a silence, not trusting himself to hear whatever Claude might have said next. "And - I failed to capture Kleiman. My work is unfinished while he remains free."

"You didn't fail," Claude said sharply.

"Please do not attempt to spare my feelings."

Claude shook his head. "Dedue, I know this is important. I have him in the palm of my hand. Trust me. It'll be better to sort out the Kingdom side of it once we meet up with Sylvain, anyway."

"Felix is here," Dedue pointed out.

Felix was, in fact, technically the most senior noble in the Kingdom of Faerghus, for all that he loudly professed his displeasure at the mere idea of leadership.

"Yeah. He's _here_ , chomping at the bit to fight anybody who stands still long enough instead of trying to rally the Kingdom. Between you and me, I don't think there's going to be a Duke Fraldarius for much longer. Sylvain's not a bad alternative."

"I agree. He is not the man he pretends to be."

Sylvain was by far the best possible alternative out of all the Kingdom nobles, Dedue thought.

_I believe the Duscur people are innocent._

Hearing that from the heir to the third most powerful position in the Kingdom had eased something in him, all those years ago. Even if it was just talk, it was a sign that Dimitri was not alone in his sentiments. He had seen dissolute, self-destructive, troublesome Sylvain differently after that.

Claude ran a hand through his hair and heaved a sigh. "Of course I read about what happened, but to see it - there's so little left. They really meant to wipe Duscur off the map."

"Yes. They must have."

Dedue could say _you didn't see it when it was nothing but smoke and blood_ but no, those words were best kept inside. Claude did not deserve them.

Claude winced like he'd read it off Dedue's face. "Gods, I sound like an idiot. I'm sorry, you shouldn't have to hear this."

"Do not apologise. Your sentiments are not unwelcome."

"You're too nice, it's really kind of ridiculous," Claude said. "It's not going to be easy or quick to rebuild, is it? So much was lost."

Dedue thought of Amesemi standing before the river, the fire in her eyes as she spoke of the strength of their people.

"The people remain. The rest will come with time."

"Is there anybody you knew from before?" Claude asked softly.

"No. My town was almost entirely wiped out."

"I'm sorry."

Dedue swallowed to chase away the harsh edge creeping into his voice. "I have had a long time to become accustomed to it."

"I don't know how you get used to this," Claude said.

In the beginning he'd been overtaken by the void of grief and the only respite in the darkness was Dimitri's outstretched hand. Then he'd had purpose, someone to stay alive for, something to move toward.

"I think of them often. I pray for them." He had to live his life for them, too. All the milestones and joys they'd never have. "My sister would have come of age this week."

"What was she like, your sister?" Claude asked, as rapt as if Dedue was imparting some great and terrible secret. "If you don't mind me asking."

Dedue closed his eyes until he could see Ren's joyful smiling face.

"A little spoiled. Kind. Exceptional at everything she tried. She made everyone laugh."

"She sounds like a lady after my own heart," Claude said with a wistful smile. "I was never very close with any of my sisters."

"You have siblings?" Dedue asked, taken aback. He'd never heard Claude offer anything about his family. Monastery gossip had speculated long and hard and the only thing anybody knew for sure was that he had parents and his mother was related to old Duke Oswald.

"Quite a few. Mostly older. Mostly not very nice," Claude said lightly. "I always wanted a cute younger sister to spoil. Anyway. Sounds like you were close."

"I miss her very much," Dedue said. "Even now."

"I can imagine. Can I - well. Aren't you ever angry?"

Once he'd been filled with rage, so much it would threaten to suffocate him, and the only thing that had checked it was the need to blunt Dimitri's own. By the time he got to Fhirdiad he'd learned that the mere hint of temper was dangerous for someone like him; that he was not allowed to show anger, just like he was not allowed many other things if he wanted to survive. So he'd carefully pushed it down, learned to moderate his speech, avoid confrontation. Every indignity had to be borne invisibly.

"Constantly," Dedue admitted.

Claude's smile acquired teeth. "Me too."

"I would not have guessed."

"I have to keep smiling. What alternative is there? If I fall to anger or despair, what's that telling everyone else? You know, don't you. Because you're like me."

"We are nothing alike," Dedue said. In his usual way it sounded harsher said out loud, when what he'd meant was that he couldn't imagine living the way Claude did. The toll it had to take to not only hide his anger but put on a friendly face.

"No? People like us, we don't get stuck in the past. We move forward, no matter what, and we do what has to be done. We don't look to all-powerful gods to save us."

"The gods watch. They do not intervene."

If Dedue had ever believed in gods that intervened to save their faithful, like the followers of the Church thought of their goddess, he'd have been disabused of that notion that long ago.

"Is that right?" Claude flopped down on the grass-covered patch next to Mandana. "Ooof. Not bad." He stretched lazily, laid out on his back with his head pillowed on his hands and looked up at Dedue through his lashes. "C'mon. I'm getting a crick in my neck looking at you being all tall and statuesque."

 _Not bad_ was perhaps putting it highly - the ground was hard and cold under him, the meager weeds not offering much in the way of cushioning.

Claude of course made it look like a feather-soft mattress.

"That's better. If you're going to frown at me disapprovingly I want to actually see it."

"I don't recall doing anything of the kind," Dedue said. "Not for a long time."

"Lucky me. Did Mercedes tell you about the Nabateans?"

She had, and it was as scarcely believable as the rest.

"She did - the Children of the Goddess, who ruled over Fodlan and built Agartha before the Agarthans turned on them and slaughtered them all. Rhea claims to be one of them. She created the Church to hide the truth about Sothis and Nemesis and the origins of Crests."

"Something like that. What a wild story, eh? I can never look at a Relic the same way again. Still, what a thing to do, to reshape history like that."

Dedue had felt a pang of undeniable sympathy for Rhea as Mercedes told the story. After all, he knew exactly what she must have felt after the slaughter of her people, and understood going to desperate lengths to make things right.

But she'd done much more than that, hadn't she?

"I understand why. But - "

"Do you think she was wrong?" Claude asked.

"Yes. I do. Don't you?"

Claude considered for a long moment. "She was wrong to do some of it just because she could. She's hurt a lot of people, and sometimes for not very good reasons. But I bet she didn't think of it like that. She was probably just trying to make it hurt less. Edelgard too, really, and Dimitri, of course."

"And you?"

Claude rubbed a hand over his face, but not before Dedue saw the wry set of his mouth. "And me. Still, talk about unintended consequences."

"I do not think good intentions count for much. She had power. She was responsible for all that the Church wrought, what it sanctioned in Duscur and Sreng and with Almyra."

"It's definitely time that changed." Claude cocked his head like a bird. His smile was somehow more chilling than any glare could be, his eyes sharp and cool as emeralds. "I told Rhea so myself, you know. She didn't disagree with me."

"Or else?"

The cold light in Claude's eyes receded a little.

"We had a civil conversation. She was weak, at the end. Teach was her everything, and she wouldn't even go to Rhea's death bed. A terrible end to such a grand life, I thought. But she did choose to save us coming out of Shambhala, or we'd all be dead."

"She chose to do that for a reason. I imagine she does not regret it," Dedue said.

"No, I don't imagine Rhea regrets much. I did think Edelgard had the right idea, mostly," Claude admitted. "But I've seen the good the Church can do, too, even if I had to be forced to it. The Church is just what people make of it. It doesn't have to cause misery."

Cyril's influence, perhaps. Claude certainly didn't surround himself with other stalwart acolytes of the Church, as easily as he'd fallen into an alliance with Seteth. Or just more of that wide-eyed idealism he'd never have expected to hear from such an arch pragmatist.

"I have my doubts. It has too long been an instrument of lies."

Claude rolled onto his side and grinned up at him.

"There's the brutally uncompromising Dedue I know."

"I hope you did not expect anything different from me."

"No, on the contrary. I love it. You're honest. Straightforward. That's not an easy way to live."

"I have things I hide. Same as everyone else," Dedue said stiffly, caught off-guard.

"That's not what I meant. You're the same person you were all those years ago. I didn't know you before the Calamity but I imagine you must have been just as giving and kind-hearted then."

Claude's usually excellent grasp of language must have failed him.

"What's that look for?" Claude chuckled. "You'd think I'd grown another head."

"Did you mean to use those words?"

"I hardly ever say anything I don't mean to say," Claude said. He looked at Dedue like he was a prized puzzle, one he was enjoying solving. "Getting someone to do what you want isn't hard when you know what they want. Everyone who follows me knows that's what they signed up for. Teach, too. It's just how I am. But with someone like you - If I asked you to do something dangerous with me, for me, you'd do it because I asked, no other reason."

"Yes."

He hadn't even hesitated. And in truth it wasn't that he was generally inclined to be agreeable - quite the opposite - but Claude with his bright eyes and his steady gaze, unfairly magnetic just lying there, made it easy.

"Thank you. I won't squander it. Come here."

It was as if he was a puppet on strings. Next thing he knew, Claude's head was on his thigh, and Claude was smiling up at him, pleased as a cat among the pigeons. The casual contact rang through his body like a struck bell.

Strands of Claude's hair were coming loose from the oil's hold, fanning out in Dedue's lap, falling into Claude's face. It looked very soft. He could raise his hand a short distance and brush it back. Dedue told himself to breathe.

"Thanks. You're comfortable," Claude murmured.

Mandana snorted and flexed one massive wing open, casting them both in her shade for a brief moment and making Dedue twitch.

"Does anything ever surprise you?" Dedue asked, and belated recognised the slightly exasperated fondness in it from overhearing Hilda and Shamir and any number of the others. It was strange, still, to count himself among them.

Claude grimaced. "Edelgard did. That's a lesson in itself, isn't it."

"You should not blame yourself. You were young."

He knew it to be futile as he said it, but it was worth a try.

"I still should've known. All my plans out the window because I hadn't anticipated her. If she'd just been a little luckier in the siege, Fodlan would be a very different place today. But I survived, and I knew there'd be a chance. Five long years of fending off the Empire and playing the Roundtable against each other and waiting for the right opportunity before Teach turned up like a gift." His voice sharpened to a knife's edge. "Do you remember what Edelgard said to me, before the end? She didn't want to trust me with Fodlan, even if our dreams weren't so different."

"You made her a promise, too." He'd finish the job, Claude had said, and Dedue hadn't cared at the time quite what he meant. "What you want to do - I am still not sure I understand it."

"I haven't exactly been forthcoming with anyone - well, anyone but Teach. But it's a lovely day, we're so close to the end of the road and I'm tired of biting my tongue. Will you guard my secrets for me?"

Claude's voice was so soft he had to lean down to hear, and this close his eyes were luminous, arresting.

"Your secrets are safe," Dedue promised. He lowered his voice, too, though they were alone in the valley.

Claude's lips quirked. "Ha, if only. Where to start. All my life people have tried to make me feel like I was worthless or less than or some kind of monster. You know what I mean."

"I didn't until the Calamity."

Dedue had never been outside Duscur until afterwards, and then the hatred of the outside world was no longer a revelation, not after what he'd seen. It was only salt on an open wound.

"When you were a kid, most everyone around you was like you, right? I've never known anything like that."

"Even in - where you were born - "

Claude's lips quirked. "Even then. You know my mother is from Fodlan. She was the heir to the Alliance, actually, but she fell out with my grandfather the Duke and he went with my uncle instead. My mother is - I don't know how to describe her. She's the scariest person you'll ever meet, and the most beautiful and the bravest. Can you imagine meeting some foreigner from a land you don't know anything about and then just deciding to abandon your entire life for him?"

Actually, he could. "I don't know the precise situation, but - "

Claude gave a startled laugh. "I guess you kind of can. The point is, no one who knows her could ever believe that Fodlaners were weak or cowards. But that didn't stop them. When I came here, it was for a lot of reasons, but I was still such a naive kid that I thought it might be better. That they'd accept me here." He laughed again, but this time with absolutely no amusement in it. "What an idiot. I didn't have it anywhere near as bad as you, though."

"It should not be a competition," Dedue said firmly. In some ways he'd been treated better than Cyril at Garreg Mach because of his connection with Dimitri. Cyril had been treated a little better than Sebi, the Duscuran stablehand, because of his connection with Rhea. The differences meant little in the end.

"Isn't it? A lot of people thought I was lacking in some way or suspicious - even if they don't _know_ they still think something must be wrong with me - but even before I was Duke only nobles like Lorenz and his father got to say it to my face, because I was a Riegan. Now no one breathes a bad word around me, and it's not because they like me better."

"And what about those without an army behind them?"

Claude grinned fiercely. "Yes. Exactly. That's why I'm doing it. I want to make a world where everyone can live unafraid, and we don't teach anybody to hate anybody else because of who they are."

He said it so simply, like it was within reach. Like it was normal to have taken the world's hatred and fear into himself and turned it not into bitterness and despair but a fervent drive to make it better. To aim for something unthinkable and actually go through with it.

"It is an admirable goal. From anyone else, I would call it an impossible pipe dream," Dedue said slowly.

"Of course it is. But I'm willing to try. Your turn, now. Tell me something you're hiding."

Dedue studied Claude's face, the eager curiosity lighting up his eyes, and tried to find a suitable offering. It needed to be something monumental, to match what Claude had told him. Dedue wasn't sure he had anything left Claude couldn't have figured out on his own, save perhaps the one thing he held closest.

"To have failed so catastrophically and been rewarded with this - " Dedue gestured to encompass them. " - it does not seem right. A part of me is waiting for the axe to fall."

"You didn't fail. There was nothing else you could've done," Claude said gently.

Dedue took a breath. "One does not need to be responsible for something to feel responsible."

The corners of Claude's mouth turned down, and then he sat up and grasped Dedue by the shoulders, his fingers digging in so hard Dedue could feel it through the gloves and his tunic.

"You made Dimitri a promise, didn't you? To do your utmost for him until death. And _you did_. When I carried you out of the palace, you were on death's door. If not for Marianne and Mercedes, you'd be dead. You fulfilled your promise, as much as anybody could. I'm sure he'd say the same to you, if he could. You should be proud."

"I am."

Dedue realised it was true. He was proud of what he'd given to Dimitri, even if they had not been able to realise their dream together. He wouldn't take it back for anything.

When he dreamed of Dimitri now, he was often smiling. Not the unshadowed smile he'd worn before the war, but a more restrained version that rang true, that he'd see on rare days when something made Dimitri forget his ghosts.

He smiled now, thinking of it.

Claude let go of him abruptly as if he'd just realised what he'd done. His cheeks were flushed. "Good. That's good."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Fhirdiad. The end of one road and the beginning of another.


	4. Fhirdiad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunions, recriminations, apologies and a path to the future.

Dedue sought an audience with Amesemi on the day before they were to set off for Fhirdiad.

He saw her most days in order to pass on messages from Claude or the quartermaster, or simply to be assigned a task for the day. He'd done his share of clearing out rubble and helping replant gardens and fields, as well as the more delicate work of dealing with Faerghus settlers.

It seemed to amuse Amesemi to assign him for the latter, especially after she found out that many of the settlers became deathly afraid of him as soon as they heard his name. They'd made Dimitri into something of a bogeyman around Western Faerghus, and somehow Dedue qualified as equally fearsome by association. Just his name was enough to make grown men and women pale.

Today it felt right to meet her more formally. The council had a closed down taven they'd taken over for meetings, but for herself Amesemi still conducted most business out of her own home, a small cottage built in the Duscuran style with slanted roofs and a courtyard that connected it to four other homes.

Visitors would come and sit in the rickety old chair which probably pre-dated the Calamity, and she'd pour them a cup of unsweetened tea, just as she did now.

"Have you come to say goodbye?"

Dedue nodded. "Yes. The army is marching for Fhirdiad."

Amesemi set her piercing eyes on him behind her chipped tea cup. "You must be pretty fond of the Duke to go and fight this war for him, promises or no."

"He is a good man," Dedue said. "I cannot say I understand him but I know this much. He has told me that he will help us restore Duscur."

"You think he can do it?" Amesemi asked.

"I do," Dedue replied immediately.

Somehow, he had even from the beginning.

"I hope you're right. Whatever happens, it'll be worth seeing. I'm glad I'm alive for it. We've spent so long living on hope alone, it's strange to have something concrete to look forward to. You be careful, now. Come back home safe."

 _Home_.

Dedue swallowed past the lump in his throat. "I will."

*

On his way back to camp he was waylaid by Barsine, waving her giant axe like a banner.

"Dedue! Come, come."

"Good morning. What is it you require of me?"

He'd never seen her so excited, which was concerning given what he knew of her interests. But all she did was lead him to a broad-shouldered, bearded Almyran man with an open, affable face.

"Dedue Molinaro, meet my father, General Nader, the Undefeated."

Anyone who knew the first thing about Almyra knew about Nader, the legendary warrior parents on the Alliance border spoke of as a fairytale monster to scare their children straight. Dedue felt his spine straighten under his narrow-eyed scrutiny.

"My kid told me about you. Pretty impressive, isn't she? Youngest squadron leader we've had in years."

Nader puffed out his chest, fairly glowing with pride, even as Barsine rolled her eyes.

"She is," Dedue agreed.

"I have to be with the old man around," Barsine said dismissively, although she looked pleased. Otherwise he won't leave me anything to do."

"No need to worry about that when you're following the kid. Er. The Duke. He's always getting up to something."

"You know him well, then," Dedue said wryly, not expecting a serious answer.

"I owe him," Nader said. "Enough to be a tool in his hands. And I know he'll use me right. That's the only thing an old man like me can hope for. Now, you youngsters, you have the whole world ahead of you. C'mon, let's go. I wanna talk to you. I'll see you later, daughter."

He wrapped an arm around Dedue's shoulder and started steering him toward Claude's makeshift war room.

"Bye, father! Don't have too much fun!"

Dedue could feel Nader's big, booming laugh. "She thinks she's funny. Hey, kid, tell me about this place. I know this council's in charge of the Duscurans. What's up with all these Faerghus people? They all move out here since they took over?"

"That is correct. When Kleiman was awarded the whole of Duscur he petitioned the Regent of Faerghus for settlers. Anyone from the Kingdom willing to settle here was granted land and an initial stipend."

Nader's gaze sharpened. "They wanted the land. Got it. That's handy to know, thanks." He patted Dedue on the back so hard that Dedue almost stumbled. "The Duke thinks the world of you, Dedue Molinaro."

No inflection in the carefully neutral delivery. A good reminder that a man like Nader was capable of much more subtlety and trickery than he appeared.

"I am grateful for it," Dedue said cautiously.

"Be careful, all right. It's a rare thing to see. Kinda cute. Don't tell him I said that, he might actually get embarrassed for once."

"What don't you want to tell me?" Claude said. His voice came from behind them and Nader jumped, letting go of Dedue.

"Stop sneaking up on me, you - er, I mean, Your Grace."

Claude smirked. "I wasn't even trying. You just weren't paying attention."

"You little - uh, yes, sir."

The deferential act suited Nader poorly. It was almost comedic to watch him try, which was probably why Claude was goading him in the first place.

"I'm leaving Nader here with a decent garrison force to secure our flank. He'll be in charge of the settlers, too, and I've told him to work with Amesemi," Claude told Dedue. He grinned at Nader. "You'll like Elder Amesemi, she's scary."

"I dunno what you mean."

"That you have very particular taste in women, obviously," Claude deadpanned. While Nader spluttered he turned to Dedue. "You can trust Nader. He's known me my entire life. Taught me everything I know about melee weapons."

"And don't you forget it," Nader boomed. He seemed to reach out for Claude and think better of it as they came within view of the building Claude had commandeered. "So. What's the plan?"

"Almyrans saved the Alliance at Fort Merceus." Claude paused and glanced sidelong at Dedue. "A man of Duscur is going to help liberate Fhirdiad."

Nader laughed. "You're crazy, kiddo."

"That's why you like me," Claude said.

"Don't you forget it. I'll leave you guys to it. Come see me before you go."

"I will," Claude said as the guards opened the doors to the makeshift war room.

Felix and Shamir were already inside, both silently perched in their corners. Felix was sharpening an ornate dagger and Shamir looked to be writing in a notebook. Both looked up at their entrance. Shamir nodded in acknowledgement; Felix caught Dedue's gaze and looked away.

"Did Lysithea and Leonie get in all right?" Claude asked.

"They'll be here shortly," Shamir replied.

"We'll wait for them," Claude decided. "Shamir, do you have the latest scouting report?"

The two of them drifted off in the direction of Claude's desk, talking quietly.

"It's wrong, what Faerghus did to you," Felix said suddenly from beside Dedue.

"I know."

"I don't get how you could stand to be around us. Claude, maybe, it's nothing to do with him, but anybody from Faerghus? Not after seeing - what they did."

It was the longest Felix had voluntarily spoken to him in years. He sounded like each word was being forced out of him.

"It does not matter. I would do it again."

Felix made a disgruntled noise. "Because of _him_?"

"For His Majesty, yes. And for Duscur. Everything else is inconsequential."

That made Felix's gaze flicker to him for the briefest moment before he went back to glaring at the window.

"You coming to Fhirdiad?"

"Yes."

"Why? For him too?"

_Yes and no._

"My work is not finished," Dedue said, though his eyes drifted inexorably toward Claude's smiling face, his cool, calculating gaze trained on the reports laid out on the desk.

If Felix noticed, he chose not to comment. "Hn. Try not to get yourself killed."

Claude's face brightened like clouds parting for the sun as Leonie and Lysithea were shown in.

"There you are. No worse for wear?"

"Of course not," Lysithea said. The last time Dedue saw her had been Enbarr, when she'd cut such a swathe through the Imperial Army that he'd thought her an emissary of the god of death, diminutive and grim. The young woman standing before him now seemed more like the girl he'd barely known, all fire and brute confidence. "Just some bandits and stragglers, no match for us."

"Good. I'm glad you caught up with us, we need numbers to break Fhirdiad."

"You're not going for a full scale siege, are you?" Leonie asked. "We'd want most of the army here for that."

"Not unless something goes very wrong," Claude said with a secretive little smile. "Okay, before we begin I just wanted to say thank you. It means a lot that you're here, the old guard and the new."

"Don't mention it," Leonie said.

"Don't tell me you're getting sappy in your old age," Lysithea said, though she looked touched.

Claude grinned. "Who're you calling old, kiddo? It's not easy to see all my Golden Deer scattered to the winds like this, you know. Hilda and Lorenz in Leicester, Raphael, Ignatz and Marianne with Teach, Mercedes, Annette and Cyril back at the Monastery, Ferdinand and Dorothea holding down the fort in Enbarr, and Petra all the way off in Brigid. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss all your faces. Even Lorenz's barbs."

"We've been fighting together for so long, it is odd to be parted," Lysithea said. "I suppose that's how it will be after the war ends."

"So long as we're all still alive, we'll see each other again. You're not getting rid of me that easily," Claude said.

Lysithea's eyes widened and something passed between her and Claude that left her mouth set in determination. "As you say. We'll just have to stay alive for it."

"So. Fhirdiad. I hear it's become quite a fortress." Claude turned to Felix. "Is all of Faerghus like this? All bone rattling weather and stone walls?"

The corner of Felix's mouth turned up. "More or less. The witch had the place locked down tight, last I heard."

"Yes, only the West Gate is open and only those with a permit may enter. She's no fool. But that won't be a problem. Shamir?"

 _Click. Click. Click._ Shamir set down on the desk three wooden plaques, set with the seal of the former Holy Kingdom. "Don't ask what we had to do to get it, but we have it."

Felix's eyes widened. "This is - "

"A permit for entry into Fhirdiad. For labourers," Shamir said, a rare note of pride in her voice. "We have three, for groups of 10 each."

Claude clapped his hands together, all but boiling over with delight. "Shamir, Leonie, Dedue. How do you all feel about playing dress up?"

"You want us to sneak into Fhirdiad in disguise," Leonie said, sounding equal parts impressed and incredulous.

"You got it."

"Sounds like fun," Shamir said.

"Shamir, your group's job is to get in, kill the guards and open the North Gate for Margrave Gautier. You cannot, _cannot_ be spotted. Leonie, you're group two. Once you see the flare signal from the north, you're to kill the guards and open the South Gate."

"Is that all?" Shamir said dryly.

"Who's coming in from the South Gate?"

"That would be telling." Claude held up his hands at Leonie's unimpressed look. "Okay, okay, it's Teach."

Leonie pumped her fist. "Yes, finally! Bergliez all settled?"

"The Empire is pacified. For now," Shamir said.

Claude chuckled at her dark tone. "Always such an optimist. Gautier and Teach will make a lot of noise and attract all the attention. Dedue, once you see the flares from the North and South gates, you'll open the East Gate for me - quietly - and we'll make straight for the palace. Dedue's given us the best way in, so we'll use that. Felix, Lysithea, you're with me. Yes, Felix, you have a problem?"

"Can I go with the first group."

Felix was genuinely trying - he almost made it sound like a request, not a demand.

"No, you're too recognisable," Claude said immediately. A half-smile crept back onto his face as he watched Felix struggle, seeing the sense of it but not liking it, and his tone softened. "I know what you're thinking. He's a sensible man, he'll be fine."

Felix spluttered. "I - what are you even talking about, _sensible_ \- " Claude made a valiant effort at concealing his amusement under Felix's glare. Eventually Felix made a disgusted noise and turned away. "All right."

"Any other questions? I have more detailed orders here - Shamir, Dedue, Leonie, take these." He held out three sealed envelopes. "You leave immediately. We'll follow. Small groups, don't get spotted, but travel fast. We need to get the timing right. Be careful. Remember, your lives are more important than anything else."

"You be careful too, Claude," Leonie said.

"I'm always careful."

Dedue searched for the right words and failed to find anything that encompassed how he felt. "Stay safe," he said quietly, and dared to clap Claude on the shoulder.

Claude started at the touch and grabbed Dedue's hand with those blindingly fast reflexes just as he tried to draw back, embarrassed at his own presumption.

"Thank you. I will." No smile on his face, but Dedue was getting good at spotting when it lurked in his gaze instead, like a secret just for them. "I'll see you inside Fhirdiad."

*

Shamir introduced him to the nine hand-picked members of her group who would be accompanying him into Fhirdiad, dressed as a group of farmhands. Dedue had put on a rough, patched up cotton tunic over his armour, hidden his scarf, and braided his hair. His shield and axe were in a hidden compartment of the specially constructed cart, its surface piled with farming equipment.

"You remember your story?"

Dedue tried for a Eastern Faerghus dialect, a rougher voice. "Yes. My name is Remi. We are simple farmers who do not have our own land. We go where the work is and do whatever tasks the locals wish to pay someone else to do."

The corners of Shamir's mouth quirked. "You're not a great actor, but you'll do."

For credibility's sake his group was mostly from Faerghus, burly, sturdy men who could pass easily for farmers. One of them would play the leader of their group. The only ones Dedue already knew were the others - the red-headed Srengi woman who'd gone with them to Dead Man's Pass, and a severe-looking Almyran he'd seen hanging around the Almyran members of the Corps.

The man's name was Sabaces and he'd been with Claude's battalion before a poorly healed injury ended his riding career, or so he told Dedue as they made haste using the back roads pointed out by the Kingdom contingent.

"I was one of the first Almyrans with him, before he started calling it the Immortal Corps after the Great King's battalion. The name actually helped - they probably all thought he had to have some nerve to do that."

"What did you think?"

"I thought he was out of his mind, asking for Almyrans to join his army, but it was too good a job to turn down. Everyone knows how the Duke treats his people, even if they don't know what to make of him. A half-blood Almyran in charge of the Alliance? It's an absurd idea. What would you think if you saw a Duscuran get crowned King of Faerghus?" Dedue shook his head at the mere idea. Sabaces chuckled. "Now it's different. They're scared of him because he's - " he said an Almyran phrase too quickly for Dedue to decipher " - but they love him too."

"Pardon?"

"It's our version of your title for him - the keen-eyed demon. No one knows where he came from, but we've seen what he does."

At the monastery, gossip assumed that what Claude tried to obfuscate about his origins was that he'd been born a commoner. But a commoner with his education and connections? The more Dedue knew, the more it seemed a trap, a diversion, pointing away from something far bigger.

"Commander Barsine and General Nader seem to know something."

To be fair to Barsine, she did a better job of acting normal around Claude than Nader, who could barely be bothered to act like they weren't familiar.

Sabaces lowered his voice. "The Undefeated knows, for sure, aye. But that's not for us mortals to ask about. Dangerous business."

*

It was almost insultingly easy to get into Fhirdiad. The guard at the West Gate hardly looked at them once he saw their pass and their carts. They might as well have been invisible.

Shamir's scouts and Claude's other spies had done their jobs well, if the level of detail in Claude's directions was any indication. The East Gate was small, being usually used by farmers and passing travelers on foot, and relatively lightly guarded.

Three of Dedue's scouts disguised themselves as local merchants and wandered around long enough to confirm that the positioning of the guards and the patrol patterns hadn't changed. Then most of them got into position to wait for the signal while the Srengi woman laid down traps for anyone trying to leave the guard house.

As the sun set it began to rain, and then the storm came.

Claude had handpicked his soldiers for this assault for stealth. But even if he hadn't, in this weather there was no hope of anyone on the walls seeing or hearing them approach in the dark.

Close to midnight, just as Dedue was starting to worry, fire lit the distant sky - a flare, too bright to be natural. Sylvain's signal, from the North Gate. Barely a moment passed before an answering flare came from the south, even brighter, and the panicked shouting and screams grew loud enough to carry even to the East Gate.

In the shadows, Sabaces raised two fingers and inclined his head questioningly. Dedue shook his head.

 _Not yet_.

Sure enough, the guards at their gate soon noticed what was happening.

"What in the goddess' name is going on out there?"

"No idea! Looks like it's coming from the north and south gates!"

"Beavin! Take your squad and go find out."

Dedue waited for the footsteps to fade away. Then he held up three fingers and nodded at Sabaces, who disappeared from sight so quickly it might as well have been a warp spell. The only clue as to where he went was the muffled sound of a body hitting the ground.

Dedue stepped out of the shadows and buried his axe in the skull of the guard in front of him.

It was over very quickly, and with nary a sound. Even the few who drew breath long enough to attempt a shout could hardly be heard very far, for the rest of the city was now well and truly roused and in chaos, and there was no one left to notice when they pulled the gate open and the black-clad soldiers streamed in.

Dedue almost didn't recognise Claude among them without Mandana and his golden armour, Failnaught wrapped up on his back, not until he stopped in front of Dedue, pushed the wet bangs back from his forehead and cracked a sliver of a smile.

"Well done."

"All proceeded according to your plans," Dedue murmured.

As a student at the Monastery, Claude had spoken of his schemes lightly, as if they were more akin to pranks, child's play. After Arianrhod and Kleiman, Dedue understood that for the lie it was, and contrary to the usual way of it, the magic trick did not become less impressive as he began to see how it worked.

Claude cocked his head at the reddened sky and the distant commotion. "Looks like Margrave Gautier and Teach have this well covered." His gaze landed on Felix, all but vibrating with tension beside him, and Lysithea on his other side, shivering in the rain but absolutely focused, lavender eyes intent, and finally rested on Dedue. Whatever he saw there made his smile grow bright and knife-sharp. "Off to the palace we go, then. It's time we ended this war. For the dead and the living. Let's cut a path to our future."

Felix drew his sword. "Yes. Let's go."

"Lead the way, Dedue."

*

Their path to the palace was smooth, with all the fighting concentrated at the north and south gates, and the citizens of Fhirdiad all sensibly holed up in their homes.

For Dedue it was a strange march down memory lane. Here were the streets he'd walked, the markets he'd frequented, where he'd been the subject of derision and curiosity, anger and suspicion. A child had thrown a rock at him on that corner; a city guard had tried to detain him near that stall.

When Claude had asked him about side entrances to the palace, he'd remembered this: a door used by servants and guards that he had taken advantage of on occasion for its convenience. Never when he was with Dimitri, of course - the Crown Prince had to arrive through the front gate, his entrance heralded and acknowledged by all and sundry.

The side entrance was still guarded, but ultimately no match for Felix's sword, Lysithea's spells or Dedue's axe.

Dedue moved with a ringing awareness of Claude behind him, newly vulnerable without his wyvern and wearing absurdly light armour, and instinctively positioned himself so that he could block missiles with his shield, and intercept any melee attacks coming Claude's way.

It was a somewhat ridiculous impulse, he knew: Claude had not asked for his protection, and Dedue had seen him cut through Imperial soldiers with a sword when he ran out of arrows. But he could not help himself.

The second time Dedue repositioned to be in the path of a soldier charging for Claude, he caught the blow on his shield and swung down with his axe. The swordsman ducked, cried out as Dedue's axe bit into his side and fell straight into two of Claude's arrows, driven into his face bare-handed.

"Sweet of you," Claude said fondly, even as he reached for another arrow, and Dedue gripped his shield tighter.

When they'd cleared a path, they found the inside of the palace eerily quiet barring a few panicked servants who were swiftly ushered away by Claude's soldiers.

"I've got to say, in my experience palaces tend to be a bit more populated," Claude remarked.

"Usually is," Felix said, glancing around with an uneasy frown. "At least that's how I remember it."

Lysithea grimaced. "There's so much magical energy around here, it's hard to tell, but - I have a bad feeling. Let's hurry."

Claude swept out an arm, blocking her path. "Hang on. You can sense something or you wouldn't say that. Where is it?"

Lysithea stood stock still, eyes squeezed shut. Then she lifted her arm and pointed. "This way."

She led them down a series of increasingly deserted corridors into a suite of rooms that Dedue remembered as being unoccupied. They had been the Queen's, or so he'd been told.

"Here. Behind this door."

The set of doors Lysithea stopped in front of was grand, gold-gilded with the crest of Blayyid. They swung open as the rest of them caught up to reveal an empty ballroom with a lone figure, a richly dressed woman, at the far end.

Claude's hand-picked strike force knew what he wanted without him having to say a word. He only had to gesture at the door for them to take up positions there.

"Don't come in unless we shout for you," Claude said in an undertone. "Felix, Lysithea, Dedue, with me."

He waited for Lysithea to nod before setting foot inside. "Hello, Cornelia. We haven't met."

The woman Dedue had first met as mage to the royal family, who had killed Dimitri's uncle and tried to have Dimitri executed for it, and who now called herself Duchess of Faerghus, didn't seem so grand up close. Hard to believe she could have destroyed the Kingdom almost single-handedly, even if she was not who she had originally seemed to be.

They had hardly interacted, in the old days. He seemed to be beneath her notice, for one thing; and truth be told he'd always been wary of her. For all that she was roundly praised as a saint, when Dedue met her jewel-like green eyes he'd seen - nothing. They were empty. Just as they were empty now, even as she smiled.

"Duke Riegan. What a pleasure, at last. Duke Fraldarius too! To what do I owe the honour?"

Felix raised his sword. "Time to die, pretender."

Cornelia's sickly smile only grew wider. "I must say, I'm a little surprised to see you bend the knee to _him_. How can you even think of handing the Kingdom over to his kind? An Alliance upstart? Even worse, a foreigner? Don't you think your father would be rolling in his grave at the mere idea? Your new king's not even from Fodlan."

"Better him than you," Felix snarled.

Claude's gracious mask didn't even flicker. "I'm as Fodlani as you are. Isn't that right? I hope you have something better than that."

Cornelia's cold, animal eyes landed on Dedue next. "Ooh, I remember you. Always shadowing the little princeling like a loyal dog, weren't you? How commendable. What a shame you couldn't stop him losing his head."

As if she could hurt him with mere words, after where he'd been, what he'd done. Dedue hefted his axe.

"It is past time for you to pay for your cimes."

"Is that so? If I'm to die today then I'll at least take you all with me," Cornelia said. She smiled wider and wider and then her face cracked open and she was enveloped in a light so bright it hurt to look at.

"Lysithea!" Claude snapped.

Lysithea beckoned; a swirl of purple energy crashed down on Cornelia's glowing form and dissipated like smoke.

"Did that do anything?"

"I don't know!"

"Spread out," Claude ordered, readying an arrow.

The light broke, revealing the thing that had been Cornelia, now immensely tall and covered in ridged scales. She had four arms, long and tapering into beams of light. Her eyes were bulbous red.

Her voice was a horrible rasp. "Now. Time to die."

She swung her arms, flinging out whips of light. Felix leapt out of the way; Claude rolled and Dedue lifted his shield, conscious of Lysithea behind him.

The whip cleaved his shield clean in half, and then agony exploded across his thighs and he stumbled and almost fell to his knees.

"Dedue!" Lysithea exclaimed, and he felt healing energy wash over him.

"Thank you," he panted.

Claude met his eyes from across the room. Dedue nodded - _I'm fine_ \- and he inclined his head. "Let's make this quick. Lysithea, hit her hard. Felix, Dedue, I need a distraction."

Felix stepped up beside Dedue, twirling his sword. "Only distraction I know how to make."

Dedue pulled himself back up into an attacking stance and steadied his shield, praying that his legs would hold him. "Yes. I am ready."

Cornelia shrugged off Claude's next volley like an irritating insect but the swirling vortex of Lysithea's Hades spell made her howl, and Dedue saw his opening, rushed forward and swung at her with all his might. His axe struggled to sink into flesh like no being he'd ever fought; she screamed and turned her monstrous eyes to him and then the whip of light hit him square in the chest and the pain was so intense he barely registered being flung aside.

He straightened up just in time to see Claude duck under the tail of a swing, bury a dagger in Cornelia's side in the same smooth motion, and straightened up right into another whip of light.

Dedue couldn't draw breath enough to shout his name, even as Felix took the next swing and ducked away only to be hit in the side by a trailing light whip.

Claude drew himself up from the ground, slowly, painfully, and smiled through his split lip and bloody teeth.

Cornelia pulled out the dagger in her side with a contemptuous snort and tossed it aside, and Dedue braced himself for another volley, but then she swayed, thick, viscous blood dripping from her nose. She heaved and spat out more blood, leaned forward and almost fell.

"What - what did you do - "

"Whatever you are, I see Dragon's Bane still works." Dedue couldn't imagine anyone bearing up under the cold light in Claude's eyes, and something very much like fear was creeping onto Cornelia's face. "That's the thing about _my kind_ \- we may not always win, but we never lose. You should've run away, Cornelia."

He stayed upright trembling until the light left her eyes, and though Dedue's heart leapt into his throat he was there to steady Claude as he stumbled.

His hand came away from Claude's side wet.

"You're injured."

"I'm okay," Claude breathed, though he let Dedue take most of his weight. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and seemed to come back to himself. "We'll be okay. We won."

*

"Cornelia is dead! The pretender is dead!" cried the Resistance Army soldiers as they flew above Fhirdiad, waving the crest of flames. "Any soldier who surrenders will be granted amnesty!"

It was over very quickly after that, or so Barsine was telling Claude as Lysithea bustled around fixing them all up. She hadn't even blanched at the sight of Cornelia's body.

"The Archbishop's looking for you and Margrave Gautier won't be far behind. As funny as it would be, you probably don't want to meet them in here."

Claude snorted. "I know, give me a second to catch my breath. Dedue, where are we going?"

Dedue considered. There was no guarantee that Cornelia had bothered with the upkeep of Dimitri's rooms. In his day, the king's chambers had been left empty, Rufus being far too cowered by Lambert's memory. Cornelia would have had no such qualms.

"The north wing. There is an audience chamber. I imagine Cornelia would have used it herself."

"Perfect. Barsine, go let Teach and the Margrave know where to find me. And get someone to lock this up. No one touches the body, I don't have time to make an antidote to Dragon's Bane."

Barsine sketched a bow and left.

"Lysithea, go get some rest, you look beat," Claude said.

"How dare you - " Lysithea broke off to yawn. "Fine. You should rest too."

"I will ensure he does," Dedue volunteered on impulse.

Claude looked briefly surprised and then touched. "You know me. Any chance for a nap," he said lightly. "Let's talk tomorrow, Lysithea. There'll still be snakes around here to catch."

"I'll be there." Lysithea somehow made it sound like a threat as well as a promise.

Claude's gaze followed her out. "Felix, do me a favour and follow her. Make sure she finds somewhere safe before she passes out."

"She's going to kill you," Felix said, amused.

"Nope. She likes you. Go." This was apparently so shocking to Felix that he went without further argument. Claude grinned at his retreating back. "Those two are so alike sometimes it scares me, and they have no idea."

"I didn't think they were acquainted."

Felix had spent most of his time at the Monastery in a bubble of inexorable connection and shared misery with his childhood friends; even when he managed to pull away from them, friendships between students of different houses was relatively rare

"Not well. But there's time to change that. We have time now."

"Time to rest, perhaps," Dedue suggested wryly. Lysithea had healed some of their injuries, but whatever Cornelia had been, her tendrils left deep bruises and gashes that could not be budged even by Lysithea's magic. He and Claude would both need bandaging before the day was out.

"Not yet," Claude said. "I will sit down, though, if you can find me somewhere nice for it."

He could indeed do that, even from his foggy memories of this part of the palace. It was doubly odd now to stride about this place, filled now with soldiers rather than servants, tending to the needs of someone as different from Dimitri as night and day.

Claude strolled contentedly behind Dedue, looking around with transparent curiosity and greeting the soldiers they passed. He didn't seem like a man who'd just won a six-year war.

Dedue turned into a wide, lavishly decorated corridor lined with two large portraits of Loog and saw Byleth stalking toward them.

The acting Archbishop of the Church of Seiros, the Ashen Demon, Herald of the Dawn and the wielder of the Sword of the Creator looked rather small and tired up close, her fine armour dented and bloodied. Something about her still made all the soldiers straighten as she passed, though she hardly glanced at them.

Claude's smile at the sight of her was a small, private thing, but all the more real for it. They embraced like they'd been parted for years.

"You okay?" she asked quietly.

"Never better now that you're here. You were brilliant, as always. Everyone else all right?"

"Yeah, stop worrying. You look tired."

Claude hardly looked any different than usual to Dedue. Clearly, he would have to learn the signs. And then, a pang - if there was the time for such a thing, in between all their goals and promises.

Claude laughed. "Harsh. You do too. Bergliez was a stubborn old bastard, huh."

"I see where Caspar got it from," she sighed. Her eerie seafoam eyes met Dedue's.

"Good to see you. I was worried after Enbarr."

They'd hardly interacted at the Monastery, but not for lack of effort on her part. She'd always been kind, short on words but a reassuring, warm presence. They had tended the greenhouse together in unbroken silence many times; it was a pastime Dedue came to treasure, especially as the year went on and the burden on her shoulders grew heavier.

"Archbishop."

Her nose wrinkled. "Please, no."

"Professor."

"Acceptable."

"Thank you for your concern. I was saved thanks to His Grace and the efforts of Marianne and Mercedes," Dedue said.

"I knew you'd live. I didn't know if you'd survive," Byleth said, still in the same inflectionless voice. "Where are you taking Claude?"

"Now I've seen you, it's just Sylvain," Claude replied.

"Be nice."

Claude's smile acquired a sly edge. "I won't. You don't know him like I do. After that Dedue promised to find me somewhere comfortable in this terrible place. Don't worry, I won't let any of the natives hear me say that."

Claude's dramatics finally broke her into something like a smile. "All right. I need to see Marianne. I'll come find you later."

She nodded at Dedue and strode past them out of sight. Claude watched her go, the look on his face so raw and tender that Dedue felt oddly protective, like he'd glimpsed a side of Claude no one should get to see.

*

"You're hurt."

It took Dedue a moment to recognise Felix's voice coming from inside one of the audience rooms. He'd never heard him sound so brittle and so fond all at once. He slowed to a stop and wasn't surprised when Sylvain's voice answered through the half-closed door.

"It's not bad."

"I've told you a thousand times, you're not invincible, watch your damn flank," Felix said harshly.

"I'm okay, Felix. Ow, watch it - all right, all right. _You_ look like you got mauled."

Dedue glanced at Claude. He didn't want to interrupt but equally he was also sure neither Felix nor Sylvain would appreciate an audience. Especially Felix.

Claude held up his arm to stop Dedue from opening the door and brought a finger to his lips. His eyes were alight with mischief.

"Lysithea healed me already. It doesn't matter. Cornelia's dead," Felix said flatly.

"Yay."

"Sylvain."

He'd never heard Sylvain sound so defeated. "I know. You needed to go more than I needed you to stay. Just tell me it helped, that it made you feel better, and I won't ask again."

Dead silence.

Claude made an exasperated noise like he was personally offended by what was happening, pushed the doors open and strode in like he hadn't been standing there listening.

"Like I was saying - oh, look, it's Felix. I see you found Sylvain."

"I ran into him," Felix said defensively. His cheeks were pink.

Claude bit his lip, but not before Dedue saw his smirk. "Good. Saves us time."

"Hey, Dedue." Sylvain enveloped him in a bone-crushing hug, his next words breathed into his chest. "I'm so glad to see you in one piece, you have no idea. Before Claude wrote me I thought - anyway. Looking good."

"I could say the same of you."

Sylvain did, despite the ravages of battle. A piece of his armour had been torn clean off by some manner of monster; there were still claw markers across the chest plate. The excesses of the dark knight armour made him seem somber, an impression belied by the ear-splitting, boyish grin he was directing at Dedue. He seemed settled. Against all odds, the responsibility of holding up half of Faerghus suited him.

Dedue looked up to see Claude watching them with a beaming smile. Even Felix seemed amused.

Even during their time following Dimitri's fury, marching until they were exhausted, fighting battle after battle on meagre supplies, Sylvain had kept up a carefree front, made a habit out of saying or doing something outrageous just to make Ingrid or Felix scold him. That front frayed the closer they got to Gronder Field, as he spent more time arguing fruitlessly with Dimitri, but his smile never faltered.

In a way, it reminded Dedue of Claude. Their smiles were mirrors of each other.

"Still not one for the sacrifice play, Duke Riegan?"

"Not if I can help it," Claude said evenly.

"I should be mad at you. Last time we met you almost killed me."

There was a dangerous edge to Sylvain's voice Dedue had never heard before.

Claude didn't seem impressed. "I was trying to keep you all alive, and you figured that out or you wouldn't be here."

"Could've just asked me to join you," Sylvain said, still in that strange voice.

"And make you choose between everyone you care about and me? I know a losing gambit when I see it." Claude's mask cracked into a careless grin. "Come here, you jerk."

Sylvain laughed. "Already ordering me around, huh."

They embraced like old friends.

"My old chess buddy! It's been too long."

"Not your only chess buddy. You were cheating on me with Hubert. Did you think I didn't know?"

Claude's smile turned wistful. "You caught me. That idiot. Could've just told me and had help dealing with those snakes, but no, he had to go and get himself killed first."

In Enbarr, Dedue had watched from a distance as Claude's blazing arrows pierced Hubert's arm and his throat before he could even fire off a spell. Claude's regret now was as genuine as his cold certainty had been then.

"He would never have bent the knee to anyone but Edelgard," Dedue said.

In a way, Dedue understood Hubert better than most.

Claude nodded. "I know. That's why he's dead. It was me or him. You know how many people he killed trying to assassinate me all these years?"

If Sylvain noticed the slight tremor in Claude's forced sounding laugh, he was polite enough to ignore it. "Well, if anyone could've seduced that wily bastard away from his precious princess…"

"You flatter me, really, but all we did was dance around each other's secrets. You're much more fun."

Claude winked, and miracle of miracles was that a blush on Sylvain?

He ran a hand through his hair, almost bashful. "You only say that because I lose to you all the time. I'd probably do it if you asked, you know. If it's you."

"Mhm? Do what?"

"Swear fealty. Bend the knee. Gautier is yours if you want it."

Claude glanced up at him through his lashes. "You know what I want."

Sylvain laughed. "I don't think anybody knew that."

"I told you," Claude said lightly. "I want to cut the world open. But I'll settle for leaving you in charge of Western and Northern Faerghus, for now."

"Answering to you?"

"Me and Teach, mostly. We can talk about the details later."

"You're taking a lot on trust," Sylvain said slowly. "Not very like you."

Claude chuckled, though he didn't exactly sound amused. "Trust is earned. You know why I trust Lorenz and Hilda? They betrayed their own parents for me. Ferdinand turned his back on his Emperor. A lot of people abandoned friends. If I'm trusting you it's because I know who you are."

Sylvain looked desperately uncomfortable at the mere idea, and Dedue thought of Claude's earlier words to Byleth with a flash of amusement.

"I want to cede Fraldarius too," Felix said suddenly.

Claude raised his eyebrows. "To me? To the Alliance? I need you to be clear. Are you sure you wouldn't rather give it up to Sylvain instead?"

Felix looked startled. "You'd allow that?"

"Why not? There'll be other options in the long run but it works for now. The real question is what you're going to do instead of helping us run Faerghus," Claude said. He was giving Felix the cool, evaluating look that had made Dedue feel so uncomfortably transparent, back at Garreg Mach.

Felix looked away. One of his hands was on the hilt of his sword, clutching so tight his knuckles were white. "I'm surprised you need to ask."

"Just thought I'd try being polite. My gold is as good as anyone else's, you know."

"Just come right out and say it."

"Why not work for me?" Claude said, and looked at Sylvain a beat too long, like he was lining up a shot. "You've been doing it a while and it seems to agree with you so far."

"If I said no you'd just persuade me anyway."

"I'm flattered you think so."

Felix stole a glance at Sylvain as if waiting for him to object. When Sylvain kept looking at him helplessly, he shook his head. "I'm going for a walk."

That broke Sylvain out of his trance.

"Felix - "

Claude put a restraining hand on Sylvain's arm when he made to follow. "Let him go."

Sylvain - laughed, a hollow and broken sound that Dedue would never have associated with him. His shoulders slumped. "I did. A part of me thought I'd never see him alive again, but I did, because he wanted it. And it fixed nothing."

"Of course not," Claude said. "I can't give him a purpose to replace the one he lost. But both of you kept going after Dimitri died. You must have had a reason."

His bluntness jolted Sylvain out of his misery; his eyes went as wide as if Claude had slapped him. "I can't figure out if you just did me a favour or fucked with me."

Claude patted Sylvain's armour-clad arm, wearing a smile that was equal parts exasperation and fondness. "You'd know if I was fucking with you. I'm giving you a window of opportunity. You'll know where he is now. Try not to waste it."

"I - thank you," Sylvain finally managed. His eyes were still wide as saucers. "You know, every time I think I've figured you out…"

"Oh, I'm not that complicated," Claude lied.

"You gotta let me at least try and embarrass you back. Who do you have your eye on? Is it the Professor? You are positively adorable."

"I don't like Claude that way," Byleth said, deadpan, and both Sylvain and Claude jumped. Even Dedue flinched - she was as silent as a ghost when she wanted to be.

"Ouch. Teach, c'mon," Claude whined, not looking upset in the least.

"I don't like anybody that way."

Claude mimed being struck in the heart, smirking all the while. "I know. Frankly, that's the only thing that makes me feel better."

Sylvain had acquired a shit-stirring grin of his own. "You know, there's this rumour I heard - did you or did you not commission Ignatz to paint the professor as the Goddess?"

"I was thinking of using it to cover up the hole we put in the wall of the royal Palace in Enbarr," Claude said blithely. "Maybe I'll get a copy for this place. It needs a bit of colour."

"You wouldn't," Byleth said, sounding horrified.

"Try me."

"What can I give you to not? Seriously. If you want me to cut down a mountain, I will," she said. "Just don't make me into a god."

Claude's smile lit up his face. His eyes glittered.

"Only you, my friend. Only you would see this power and not grasp it with both hands. But that's why I'm leaving you in charge. We're going to remake this world. Tear the walls down and start anew."

"Claude, no. I wanted you to be in charge. That was the whole point."

Claude's gloved hands landed on her shoulders, easy and familiar.

"I know. But I need you to do this part."

"What part?"

For all the affection in his eyes, Claude's voice was all steel. "Lead Fodlan forward. Let's start with the Church scrapping isolation and prejudice as official doctrine. If you ask for it, Seteth won't be able to refuse."

"He won't. Seteth's not as bad as you think," Byleth said, surprising Dedue. After what Claude had said about her feelings toward Rhea, it was strange to hear her speak well of any member of the Church. War truly did make strange bedfellows.

"Maybe not, but I wasn't going to count on it. After that we'll work on the whole Crest-worship thing. Baby steps."

They stared at each other for a long moment, seemingly communicating without words. Byleth broke first with a shake of her head. "You know I don't know how to rule a country. Any country."

"You won't have to. You'll have Sylvain and Ingrid and Ferdinand and Dorothea and Lorenz and Marianne and Hilda and everyone else. And you'll have me, remember. I'm not just leaving it to you. I have plans."

"You better."

She drew him close and they embraced before he finally let go and turned to Sylvain.

"You got all that?"

"Your plan to change Fodlan beyond recognition? Yeah, I got it. Count me in. You know, I always wondered why you made such an effort with some of us." Sylvain's voice had a familiar derisive ring to it, the self-directed barb worse than any external sting. "I get why with someone like Dorothea or Petra or Mercedes, but Ferdinand or Lorenz or me?"

Claude raised an eyebrow. "Why put yourself in that category? I know what you think you're good for. I just think you're wrong. You'll see it my way eventually."

"I don't know what I expected," Sylvain said, laughing. He shook his head admiringly. "You're really something. Even back at the Monastery, you were different from the rest of us - well, maybe not Edelgard. Plotting away while the rest of us were off in our own little worlds."

Claude's eyes then reminded Dedue of the surface of a lake, smooth and fathomless. "I learned a long time ago not to wait for the world to become kind."

"We have to make it ourselves," Dedue said, remembering Menhit, the Duscuran healer who'd smiled at him with such fierce hope.

Claude met his eyes and his smile softened into something almost sweet. "Yes. Exactly that. If I believe in anything, it's not an all powerful goddess. It's us."

*

The next day, Dedue woke early and left the palace with the rising of the sun for the outskirts of Fhirdiad.

The kings and queens of Faerghus were buried amongst an enormous garden at the back of an ancient church. It had once been beautifully tended; during the war years it had evidently been abandoned and become overgrown.

Dedue had accompanied Dimitri here many times to the burial place of Lambert, where Dimitri would spend hours staring at the marble statue of his father, heroic and larger-than-life on horseback.

A plot had been reserved here for Dimitri ever since his birth. No one had bothered to erect anything, of course; Dedue had buried him at Gronder Field, and Cornelia would hardly want a symbol of the dead king here.

Dedue found the empty plot beside Lambert's. He knelt and pressed his hands to the dirt.

_Dimitri. Are you here? It is done._

He was still standing there when the sun began to fade and Felix and Sylvain came walking up together.

"I'm sorry about Dimitri," Sylvain said.

"As am I," Dedue murmured.

"I'm not," said Felix.

"Felix." Sylvain's voice was as sharp as he'd ever heard it.

"What? It's what he wanted. Am I wrong?" He demanded, ember eyes boring into Dedue. "I saw it even at the Monastery. He stopped listening to anyone but his ghosts years ago."

"And yet you still chose to fight alongside him," Dedue said.

"Then I must be a fool too," Felix said, and the fury in his voice cracked down the middle at the end.

Dedue felt an unexpected pang of pity. Felix would probably attack him for it if he knew. "There was nothing you could have done. Any of you. You must not blame yourself."

Felix snarled, a sound so wretched that Dedue itched to reach out. Sylvain did, and Felix let his hand stay on his shoulder.

Sylvain's voice was as soft as Dedue ever heard it. "You shouldn't either, Dedue."

"I do not," Dedue said, and realised with relief that he meant it. "I did my duty as best I could."

Felix nodded sharply. "Good. That's good. Don't you dare let him haunt you, got it?"

"I will not," Dedue said. "There is much to do."

Sylvain considered Dedue for a long moment. "You really mean it, huh. That's great."

"I have been nothing but a vessel of regret and sorrow. I have mourned, both for His Majesty and for the world he promised to build. But there are things I want to do, for Duscur and for myself, in this one."

It had only taken Claude's outstretched hand for him to realise it.

"Then why did you come?" Felix asked, in a curiously flat voice.

Dedue eyed the empty plot. "To say goodbye."

Sylvain followed his gaze to the large rectangle of bare earth, encroached upon by weeds and the few flowers hardy enough to grow in the Faerghus wilds. "We should get a headstone put up here. Something. He should have some kind of proper resting place."

Felix made a noise of agreement. "When Ingrid gets here. She'll be furious if we did it without her."

Dedue left them to it. They seemed at least much more at peace with each other than they'd been yesterday, and he glanced back at their distant figures to see their shapes meld together in an embrace. Maybe Sylvain had taken Claude's advice.

Dedue had already started building his own monument, and it would not be a tomb.

*

Later that day, he found a note from Claude slipped under his door.

> _Sorry I've been so busy. You'll want to stick around a few more days - I hope to have good news soon._
> 
> _CvR_

Truth be told, Dedue had not yet contemplated leaving. There was still much for him to do in Fhirdiad. He had once carefully noted every Duscuran he ever met here and for a time became acquainted with some of them, farmers and tradesmen and servants and merchants. Amesemi would no doubt appreciate it if he renewed those connections. Duscur needed goods from the outside world, but more than that it needed people.

Plus, he had a sense of unfinished business when it came to Claude, although if pressed he couldn't articulate what he hoped for. Nothing realistic, anyway, he scolded himself. Nothing but fanciful notions.

Alessia was there to meet him the next day as he returned from a meeting with a Duscuran merchant who had, despite all odds, grown his little stall into a store. Again and again, Dedue was left amazed by what his people had managed to accomplish even in a place like Fhirdiad, where hatred of Duscurans had become entrenched.

Ever conscious of appearances, Claude had chosen not to occupy the wing of the palace reserved for the king of Faerghus. Instead he'd claimed the quarters the old regent had used, and Alessia let Dedue into a large, lavishly decorated drawing room set with plush chairs that none of the room's current inhabitants were using.

Instead Claude, Sylvain and Felix stood before a sword mounted on the wall. Claude and Felix seemed to be having a spirited debate while Sylvain watched them with an odd look on his face, like he couldn't quite believe what was happening.

"What?" Felix demanded, as Alessia closed the door behind her.

"Nothing," Sylvain said hastily. "Hey, Dedue. You made it."

Claude smiled and raised a hand too, though he seemed oddly distracted. "Good. They'll be here any moment now."

 _They_ turned out to be Lysithea, who flung the door open with a bang and strode in imperiously.

"Got a present for you," she declared.

The tense set of Claude's shoulders disappeared as if by magic. "Lysithea! You're back. Good hunting?"

"Caught a rat. And ten of his slithery best friends."

Ingrid came in after her, dragging an unconscious, bound man along.

The man's face was etched into Dedue's mind from his worst, most vivid memories. Unarmoured, Kleiman didn't seem monstrous. Just small and old, insignificant.

"Your Grace." Ingrid bowed low and Claude inclined his head, for once the model of decorum. "Sylvain, Felix." Her eyes widened at the sight of Dedue.

Dedue nodded at her. "Countess Galatea."

"Just Ingrid, please. It's good to see you well."

"You caught Kleiman?" Dedue asked.

Ingrid nodded sharply.

"Thank you," Dedue said.

"Are you okay?" Claude was asking Lysithea in an undertone.

"I'm _fine_ , stop fussing." Despite her impatient tone, when Claude reached out his hand she clasped it briefly with hers before pushing back. "He doesn't know anything about the snakes. I'm going to go talk to some of his friends."

With that, Lysithea swept out.

Claude considered the man on the floor and turned to Dedue. "I'm going to wake him up. Are you ready?"

Dedue took a deep breath. This, then, was the news Claude had asked him to wait for. "Go ahead."

"Then let's get some answers."

Claude produced a small vial of powder from his pockets, shook a small amount out onto a handkerchief and held it against Kleiman's face. When Kleiman started to splutter he took a step back to stand beside Dedue. Felix stepped up on Dedue's other side, a hand casually resting on the hilt of his sword, Ingrid and Sylvain both stone-faced beside him.

He watched the alarm overtake Kleiman's haggard face as he took in his surroundings, tested his bonds, and pulled himself up to sitting.

"So you're the Riegan brat," he said finally. His voice was hoarse, almost a snarl.

"That's Your Grace to you, scumbag," Sylvain drawled.

"Always a pleasure, Sylvain. Felix and Ingrid too, what a lovely reunion this is."

Sylvain smiled, ice cold and with teeth. "Since you old boys love hierarchy so much - I don't recall giving you permission to use my name, _Viscount_. Duke Fraldarius didn't either."

"Where was this bravado before you had his army backing you up?" Kleiman said, jerking his chin at Claude. "Letting the Alliance take Faerghus. You should be ashamed. And you don't even know him."

"What about me?" Claude asked casually.

"They all wonder where you came from when they should be wondering who you are, _Claude von Riegan_."

Claude rolled his eyes. "I have no idea what you mean. _I_ haven't been replaced by one of your slithery best friends."

"There's no point in asking me. I'm not one of them."

"Yes, we've established that. You were already odious enough on your own, clearly," Ingrid said. She regarded him like a particularly disgusting insect.

"All right, then. We won't talk about the snakes," Claude said, pleasant as if they were having a discussion over tea. "Tell me about the Tragedy of Duscur."

Kleiman squinted at Claude. "Why are you so interested?"

"It's a mystery. I like solving mysteries," Claude shrugged, deliberately nonchalant.

Finding no purchase with him, Kleiman's gaze slid to Dedue.

"I remember you now. You're that boy the Prince saved. Almost didn't recognise you without the stink of fear on you." He began to laugh. "This is why you're asking. You believe that line the Prince sprouted?"

"I have no reason not to," Claude said. "From the reports, the massacre of the Faerghus delegation was meticulously planned and carried out by people who knew what they were doing. Not civilians."

Kleiman smirked. "If you say so."

"But - you led the investigation." Ingrid's voice shook. "You said the Duscurans were to blame - "

"Ha! Those savages didn't have the brains or the men to take down Lambert. Any fool could see that. It had to be well resourced."

"Nobles, then, powerful ones. Who? Who would dare?" Felix demanded.

"Lord Arundel," Claude said suddenly. "That's who Rowe means in his letters. _The Outsider_. He planned it all. You just...participated."

"Why would I do that?" Kleiman asked, still with that awful teeth-baring smirk.

Dedue stared down at the man on the floor with his arms crossed.

"You wanted the land," he said. "All Arundel had to do was promise you Duscur to rule, and you were his."

"Not just me. I couldn't get the King up here all on my lonesome. Rowe needed the land more than I did, or he was going to get killed in his sleep by some farmer he conned out of theirs. The idiots in Fhirdiad just wanted Lambert out of the way."

"What was wrong with Lambert?" Claude asked nonchalantly.

"Wasn't as bloodthirsty as he used to be, was he. Where was the vigour of the conqueror of Sreng?"

Sylvain went pale. "We annexed half of Sreng. Was that not enough for you?"

"Lambert and Rodrigue shouldn't have stopped at half. Sreng and Duscur are poor prizes, but what choice do we have? If we didn't expand, how would we counter the Empire? And look what happened. You brats have no idea what it takes to run this country."

"We've been fighting your war since we were children," Ingrid said. "I think we can manage."

"Say what you want. Everything I did, I did for Faerghus."

"Is that right?" Claude swiveled his head around to Sylvain in a way that reminded Dedue of Mandana, right before she bit someone. "What do you think, Margrave Gautier?"

"Dad was an asshole, but you didn't have to give him up to the pretender," Sylvain said, almost lazily, barely looking at Kleiman.

"That is a false and baseless accusation!"

Any trace of levity vanished off Sylvain's face. "Baseless? He went to you alive and came back in pieces. Face it, you and Rowe and all the other crooks destroyed Faerghus. You're the reason there'll be no more kings in Fhirdiad."

Kleiman was a coward, but a smart one. Some survival instinct kept him from pushing Sylvain any further.

"Duke Fraldarius, what do you do with traitors in Faerghus?" Claude asked lightly.

"We execute them," Felix said.

"You wouldn't dare."

Claude's cold smile said without words that the man was pitifully transparent, that he could and would take him apart without breaking a sweat. "Why not? Everybody in this room drew and lost rivers of blood in your war. Some of them have been waiting years to make you answer for it. Buuuuuut lucky for you, Duke Fraldarius isn't in charge of what happens to you either. Dedue?"

He truly was a husk of a man. Petty, greedy, delusional, unworthy of fear or even anger. His only utility lay in what he knew, and the justice he deserved.

"The Duscuran people will judge you," Dedue pronounced finally. _It is what you deserve._

Kleiman snorted. "I'm a man of Faerghus, a noble. I don't submit to your judgment."

"Are you," Dedue said. He turned to Felix. "Is he, Felix?"

"You're banished from Faerghus. Effective immediately," Felix said. He was staring at Kleiman as if he was moments away from drawing his sword.

"By the way, that means your land and title are forfeit to the Crown," Sylvain added.

"You should count yourself lucky," Ingrid said coldly. "If you were still a man of Faerghus I would be honour-bound to challenge you. There is no refusing an honour challenge. I'm sure you know that."

"You will be brought to Duscur. The people will judge you," Dedue said again. "You need not fear mistreatment or injustice. We are not like you."

For the first time, Kleiman looked uncertain, almost afraid. "Duke Fraldarius. Margrave Gautier. You can't mean to give me to those - those savages. It's him you should hate. I'm a noble, a man of Faerghus. You can't let them do this."

Ingrid stirred as if she was going to strike him, only to be forestalled by Claude taking a step forward.

"Let me give you some advice," Claude said, his voice low and deceptively soft. "Between now and your arrival in Duscur, at least try to learn to watch your mouth."

He glanced at Dedue and waited for his nod.

"Alessia, take the prisoner away."

"Are you all right?" Claude asked quietly, as soon as the door closed behind them.

Dedue took a deep breath; let it out. He felt like he had just run from Fhirdiad to Faras, but also as if a heavy weight on his chest was finally gone. "Yes. I am glad to have had this opportunity. Thank you."

"Nothing like hearing it from the source. And now all of Fodlan can find out the truth." He raised his eyebrows at Ingrid, Felix and Sylvain meaningfully.

"Yes. It is time," Dedue agreed.

Ingrid looked on the verge of tears. "B - but if it's all true, how could you ever forgive what we did? How could anyone?"

"They shouldn't," Felix said harshly. "Ingrid, you haven't seen what they - what we did to the place. It's - "

"It is not a matter of forgiveness," Dedue said.

"Still. I'm sorry." Ingrid bowed very deeply. "Um. You don't have to say anything."

"I'm sorry too," Sylvain said quietly. "Some of us never believed it. But it's not like I ever lifted a finger to help, so what does that matter?"

"It matters what you do now, Margrave Gautier," Dedue said, not unkindly.

Nothing was impossible, he knew that now. All the old rules, the way things were - all of it could change. It was just a matter of trying.

"Faerghus should return all the stolen land at least, if you're asking me," Claude said casually, like he'd read Dedue's mind.

"Where will the settlers go?" Sylvain asked. He looked thoughtful.

"That's for you to figure out. Let me give you some advice from recent experience. Help with urgent needs first, and if they decide they trust you, maybe you can talk about it."

Dedue nodded. "Yes. That would be a good start. The remaining settlements in and around Duscur. They need help, especially if there is to be a return."

Sylvain perked up. "We're certainly happy to help."

"Us too," Ingrid said quietly.

Felix grunted in assent.

Claude glanced around the room. "Is someone here going to volunteer to handle this on the Faerghus side?"

"Sylvain, you - " Dedue said. "I would like it to be you."

"Then it's settled. Dedue, you talk to the elders and tell Sylvain what you need. Sylvain, you're in charge of cleaning up Kleiman's mess from the Faerghus side, but Dedue has veto on anything you propose. Felix, make sure he doesn't get killed."

"You don't ask for much, do you," Felix said, glaring at Claude without much heat.

"Hey, don't I get a say?" Sylvain said. He sounded delighted; was staring at Felix like all his birthdays had come at once.

"If it keeps you out of trouble, it's probably a good thing," Ingrid said.

Sylvain stared down at his hands, and then back up at Claude, as uncertain as Dedue had ever seen him. "You know I've never done anything like this."

Dedue found a smile for him. "I will be sure to let you know if you make mistakes."

"See, Dedue thinks you can do it," Claude said. "And you'll have help. Reach out if you need me, I'll be in Fhirdiad for a few weeks and I think Teach might set up court here, at least for a few seasons."

Felix, Sylvain and Ingrid exchanged a glance that seemed to be an entire conversation.

"What about after that?" Sylvain asked.

"I can't stay here, I'm not made for this weather. Maybe Garreg Mach? Not as nice as Derdriu but conveniently central."

Sylvain stared at him for a long moment, as serious as Dedue had ever seen him. "Fine, don't tell me. I'll just find out you've done something crazy and amazing _again_ way later, though I can't even imagine what's left to do."

Claude laughed. "Isn't the anticipation half the fun? Just wait. We've barely started."

*

Dedue barely saw Claude over the next few days, as he busied himself preparing for the journey back to Faras, and Claude spent a great deal of time in meetings. So when someone knocked on his door at an almost indecently late hour, he didn't expect to see Claude on the other side, dressed for travel.

"Hey. Can I come in?"

"Of course."

Dedue had been given a suite of rooms in the same wing as Claude's, which meant that they had been decorated by Rufus and probably belonged to one of the man's many mistresses. It was a level of decadent comfort he found almost distressing.

"Sorry to do this so late, I won't disturb you long."

"Are you leaving?" Dedue asked, careful not to let the disappointment colour his voice. He'd thought he had more time.

"Yeah, Hilda and Lorenz need me. Hopefully it won't take too long. There's still a lot to settle here." Claude scrubbed a hand over his face. "I have to figure out how to convince a lot of soldiers and officers who've been fighting for years that they'd rather do something else, and placate a whole lot of nobles who don't trust me, and divert resources around so people don't starve, and start thinking about reforming the Church. It's a good thing I like politics."

In truth he made it all look much easier than it was.

"I wish you every success," Dedue said.

"You can go anytime you want. You know that, right? You've done enough for me," Claude said firmly.

"I do, yes." He knew. He hadn't wanted to. "Will you let me thank you now?"

Claude's smile was so radiant, joyful that it exposed all the previous ones as the pale imitations they were, and Dedue's mouth went dry.

"We're still not done, you know. Not until the day Duscur is reborn. Home is a place, isn't that right?"

Hearing the phrase spoken by Claude, even in Fodlani, sent a jolt through him.

"Yes. A place of our own, safe. Where we are not made to be afraid, and hatred cannot touch us."

"Where hatred cannot touch us," Claude repeated softly, momentarily disarmed. The unshuttering of his face was extraordinary - the depth of emotion in his upturned gaze staggered Dedue before he looked away to rummage in his pockets. "Here, I got you something to remember me by, in case you leave before I get back."

It was a beautiful gold pin, intricately wrought with a sunburst pattern that was oddly familiar, though he couldn't quite place it. Claude clipped it to his scarf with quick, deft hands.

The lamplight cast the sharp lines of his face in gold. He wasn't wearing his gloves and his bare hands seemed oddly delicate; there was a scar running across his left palm, bisecting all the lines, calluses on his drawing fingertips.

Everywhere he touched lit up like a beacon, even through fabric.

"There," Claude said, satisfied, and patted Dedue's chest.

They were standing very close, still. Claude hadn't bothered to move back, just tilted his head back.

Dedue had to swallow before he could speak. "If you ever have need of me - if you want me at your back, for whatever you need to do - I will be there."

Claude's brows drew together. "But - don't you want to stay in Duscur? I've told you before. You don't need to feel obliged to me."

"It is not a matter of obligation, or of debt," Dedue said, his heart thumping painfully against his ribcage. Surely Claude could hear it. Felt like something enormous was clawing its way out of his chest. The last time they spoke about this, he'd taken the easy way out. It was unworthy of him. Of what he felt. This time he would not. "That is not why. I am not offering. I am asking."

Claude's eyes widened; he stared at Dedue like he was something extraordinary, a miracle. Spots of colour appeared on his cheeks. He ducked his head, chuckling softly, and when he looked up he was once again composed, though his eyes glinted.

"You mean it?"

Once he'd wondered what kind of person lay behind all those masks; what kind of person Claude was to need them. He hadn't, perhaps, expected the answer to be this.

"Always."

"In that case, I'll hold you to it. Let me ask you a question."

"Go ahead."

"On one condition: you can't give me an answer yet. Not until - well. There's something I need to show you first."

"What do you - "

Claude stood on his tiptoes, took Dedue's face in his hands and pressed his mouth to Dedue's for a brief, warm moment, and that second pole-axed Dedue so completely that Claude had retreated to the door before he thought to call out.

"Your Grace - Claude - "

"Don't give me an answer yet. I'll see you soon. Remember, you promised me a field full of flowers."

**End of part 1: the shape of the boundary you leave behind (Fodlan/Duscur)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I can't believe we finally made it here so many words later. Almyra soon.
> 
> In the next chapter: Claude is called back home. He asks Dedue to go with him.


	5. Interlude: Fire Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the new Duscur, Dedue entertains visitors, both friendly and not.

Dedue had thought to petition Amesemi for the right to plant flowers in the valley Claude had found for him.

"The Duke already asked," Amesemi said. The glint in her eyes said she was trying very hard not to laugh at him.

"He did?"

Of course Claude wasn't the sort to presume, or to leave a task half done. But when had he found the time?

"As a personal favour, he said. We'd have told him no if he tried to buy the land, of course, but a favour from him, to let you revive the Snake's Head? That's a bargain. I hear you're a talented gardener."

Dedue had to smile at the thought of Claude earnestly discussing horticulture with Amesemi.

"My father. He taught me well."

A pang came with that thought - a memory of his father's strong, calloused hands, the delicacy they were capable of, how gentle he'd been. Amesemi must have seen it in his eyes; her gaze softened.

"It's not fair to any of us, to carry so much. But we have to, now. For the sake of the lost. We're the ones who remember."

*

A week after he came home, Dedue planted the valley full of Duscuran Lilies.

Slowly he began to think in his mother tongue again, after years of only hearing and speaking Duscuran in dreams. It was as if a vice around his heart was slowly loosening. Every breath came easier than the last.

A week after that, the first wagons from Gautier arrived, laden with food.

The letter from Claude arrived a week after that, handed to him by a bronze-skinned merchant who spoke Fodlani with a lilt, whose entire caravan had been brought up by House Riegan and asked to deliver food from Arianrhod.

Dedue's scarf pulled to the side as he supervised the unloading of the carts and the merchant's eyes widened as he saw Claude's sunburst pendant pinned to it. He bowed very deeply in parting and would not let Dedue return the gesture.

*

_How are those flowers?_

_I'm in Goneril. The war hasn't been here. It's such a stark contrast from Faerghus. Merchants on the street thank me for keeping the Empire away. People here aren't scared - they don't have the scars._

_They're not really scared of the threat from out east anymore, either, despite the occasional skirmish. Holst is more of a general than an administrator, but he has less awful ideas than some and a willingness to learn. Practically a miracle, given who his parents are and what he grew up around. He chose me and mine despite all that, which gives me hope._

_It's good to see change. I hope it's the same for you in Duscur. I never asked - how does judgement work for you? Is it through the Council?_

_I enclose a small gift. May it keep you warm during those cold nights I've read so much about._

_Don't work too hard. Think of me fondly._

_I remain yours truly,_

_Claude_

*

The letter came with a satchel of four-spice blend. Dedue was enjoying a cup with Amesemi when her apprentice appeared at the door, breathless and tense.

"Anhur's here. The Vanguard too, I've never seen so many of them in one place."

Dedue finished his tea and stood. "Do not trouble yourself, Elder. I will go out to meet them."

Anhur and his Vanguard had not been seen in Duscur since that first day when the Resistance Army drove out Kleiman. Dedue had thought it unusual prudence on their part. Given their goals the wisest course of action was to wait and see what Claude intended to do, and they would have been an awkward problem for the Council, after all the violence they'd claimed as their own.

The guard on duty was Merul, an often-sullen young man who had been conscripted to build Kleiman's castle in the time before. He'd never looked so happy to see Dedue.

"Protector!"

Dedue patted his shoulder. "Be calm. What is it they want?"

It was indeed Anhur, and Dedue could see why Merul had been so alarmed - even Dedue had never seen so many members of the Vanguard in one place. There were hundreds of them. Men and women, young and old, many of them weary and scarred, some with looks of wonder on their faces.

"They're demanding an audience with Elder Amesemi," Merul said indignantly.

"What is your business with her?" Dedue asked, directing his words at Anhur. "I recall her telling you to leave."

"Protector?" Anhur echoed mockingly. "I hope you haven't gone soft."

 _You're already one. I'm just giving you the title_ , Amesemi had said, and he'd thought of the stories his mother had told of the heroes of old and felt his heart clench.

"Far from it," Dedue replied.

"Still remember how to wield an axe?"

He hadn't changed a bit. Dedue's mouth twitched. "My axe helped take our homeland back. I remember very well."

"Show me, then," Anhur said. His hand dropped to his sword and Dedue heard the rustling behind him that was no doubt Merul lifting his axe.

Dedue had his own strapped to his back. He hadn't touched heavy armour since he'd arrived back in Duscur; other habits were a bit harder to break. He didn't make a move for it.

"I will not. A Protector does not attack unprovoked."

The haughty little smirk disappeared off Anhur's face, leaving something that looked perilously close to desperation.

"Then let me see the Elder. Please."

"You want me to beat you up, is that it?" Amesemi said sharply, stepping out from behind Dedue even as he moved to shield her.

Anhur stared at her, his throat working, even as she strode forward imperiously.

"You look well, Auntie," he finally said.

"I told you. I ordered you to leave if you weren't ready to lay down your arms and take the pledge. So why are you here, idiot nephew?"

"I'm ready now," Anhur said quietly. "We want to help."

Amesemi shook her head and let out a broken laugh.

"You know how many times they beat me because of you, all these years? I never told them a word, because we needed you. No matter what you'd done."

Anhur wiped roughly at his face and dropped to his knees in the dirt. "I'm sorry. Auntie, please. I'm sorry," he choked out in a broken rasp.

Amesemi's eyes were wet too. She bent and lifted him up off the ground and dusted him off, and turned to the Vanguard he'd brought with him.

"You're all welcome to settle here, so long as you promise only to take up arms to defend our people. If you dare to provoke conflict, if you do anything to threaten what we've built here, the judgment of the gods will fall upon you."

"We're here to pledge," said many voices in near-unison.

Amesemi's fierce expression softened. "Then welcome home."

*

_To His Grace Duke Claude von Riegan, Leader of the Leicester Alliance_

_All is well here._

_We have completed Kleiman's judgment. Our way maintains that all victims must have a chance to speak before a verdict is rendered. The ceremony lasted a month. We could easily have gone on. Many tears were shed. It was difficult, and to my thinking essential. Some travelled back to Faras from all over Fodlan just to attend, and after it was over some decided they wished to stay._

_Our judgement is that his stained hands shall help rebuild what is lost. After all, we are taught that all hands were made to build._

_We worship a god of death who renders judgment, and a goddess of life who cradles us in her arms. In Iken where I was born we also revere as the bridge between the two worlds a sacred bird, reborn in a blaze at every dawn. Out of death there is life. One goes through the fire to arrive at one's true self._

_We can make a better Duscur out of the ashes of what was lost. That is what I believe._

_I hope you are well, and safe, and allowing yourself some rest._

_You have the eternal regard of our people for all that you have done. I am sure you know that it is the same for me._

_Dedue Molinaro, Protector of Duscur_

*

When it was his turn, Dedue stood before Kleiman, before the eyes of his people, and he spoke.

_I am Dedue Molinaro of Iken. I witnessed the Calamity. On that day my father, my mother and my sister were murdered by the army you led. I speak for them today. I was only saved through the actions of Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. I speak for him too._

_I will tell you now what I saw on that day. I know your heart. I do not expect remorse, or regret, and I would not believe it from you. But you will listen, as you have listened to my brothers and sisters. It is the least of what you owe us._

*

Sylvain visited a few months in, to Dedue's surprise. It was the first time in years he'd seen Sylvain in anything less than full armour, with no weapon other than a ornamental sword at his hip. Even Felix, trailing him like a shadow, seemed to have made an effort to be non-threatening; armour-less and unarmed other than his customary sword and a few hidden daggers.

"Oh no, this isn't an official visit," Sylvain said, grinning. "We're some way off that. We're just in the neighbourhood to start evicting the settlers and nobles from your land and thought we'd say hi."

"I assume you have somewhere for them to go," Dedue said, surprised.

Sylvain nodded. "Eastern Faerghus lost a lot of people in the war. Plenty of free land we can dangle in front of the farmers and merchants to get them to leave, and it's at least in better shape than the land here. We're still working out the details, but it's a start."

"What if they don't wish to move?" Dedue asked.

The Council had decided to tolerate the presence of the settlers as a matter of necessity in the short term. Most of them had been skeptical of the promises Dedue had returned with from Fhirdiad; months of good faith had scarcely begun to undo the damage of the previous ten years.

Not that they had much of a choice - they were in truth still reliant on those who ruled the new region of Faerghus to uphold their end of the bargain. If not, soon there would not be enough land or resources for the returning Duscurans.

"That's why we're here," Sylvain said with something approaching glee. "To dangle the carrot while waving around the stick."

Dedue considered his fine clothes and bright-eyed enthusiasm. "You look well. Politics suits you."

"Not sure what I've done to deserve that," Sylvain said wryly.

"Don't you prefer it to fighting?"

Sylvain chuckled. "Oh, there's been plenty of fighting. I don't think Felix wants to leave."

"If you really think that, you're an idiot," Felix said, rolling his eyes. "Three assasination attempts this trip alone. Claude really meant it when he said you'd need to be kept alive."

Dedue tensed. "Were any of them Duscurans?"

Sylvain waved him off. "No. Not as far as we know. Mostly just the Faerghus old guard. They've never liked me and they like me even less now that I'm doing this."

"They're finished and they know it," Felix muttered. "Pathetic."

"Claude told me to take it as a compliment. I think he was joking," Sylvain finished.

Dedue permitted himself a small smile. "You have angered the right people, perhaps."

"That's a good way of thinking about it. Hey, you and Claude seemed to be getting along pretty well, back in Fhirdiad. What happened with that?" Sylvain returned Felix's narrow-eyed look with a mischievous grin. "I'm just giving him a taste of his own medicine, Felix, don't look at me like that."

Felix snorted. "True."

"We each have our own path to follow," Dedue said, but he couldn't help thinking of Claude bidding him farewell, _don't give me an answer yet_ , Claude's hands on his face, the warmth of him so close.

"Holy Goddess, are you embarrassed? That's adorable. I can't blame you, he's - well, you know," Sylvain laughed. "I just always feel like he's about to dig his hands into my chest and show me what my heart looks like - but that's a me problem. You don't have to worry about that."

Funnily enough Dedue knew exactly what he meant, vividly remembered thinking something similar that fateful day in the greenhouse at Garreg Mach. He'd been afraid of Claude seeing his despair and aimlessness, and just as he feared Claude had seen it immediately, and he'd seized on it and said _come with me_.

After that, he hadn't been afraid. Even the formless longing that had taken up residence in his heart - he wasn't afraid of it being perceived, not after how they'd parted. A little frightened of what it might mean, perhaps. Protective of something so new and fragile and precious. Uncertain as to how to proceed.

"I have become unaccustomed to hope," he said finally. "But I find myself hoping."

Sylvain's teasing grin softened. "Why not? Look around us. I'm pulling for you. You deserve something good."

"Thank you, my friend."

"Oh, and - " Sylvain leaned closer, lowering his voice. "Next time we're here we'll be ready to meet the Elders. We'll have something to offer."

Dedue clasped his hand. "We look forward to it."

*

Menhit arrived sometime after that, which Dedue had been half expecting. What he didn't expect was that Mercedes would be with her, looking around with just as much wide-eyed wonder.

"Welcome to Duscur."

"It's an honour to be here," Mercedes said very seriously in her sweet voice, and then she threw her arms around him. "Oh, Dedue, it's so good to see you. You look great!"

Menhit watched them both with an intensity that was far too old for her youthful face.

"Welcome home, Menhit."

"Thanks to you, Protector. You saved our people."

Dedue shook his head, although he couldn't help a smile. "No. We all did. Together."

*

Later Mercedes took him aside and asked in a hushed voice if it was okay for her to stay.

"Not to tell anyone what to do. Just to help."

He wouldn't ever have suspected her of trying to tell anyone what to do; it simply wasn't her way. He liked that she knew to ask. Dedue promised to speak to the Elders for her.

"I like Menhit," Amesemi said. "She's got spirit. Your friend's all right, too. She's a survivor, I can tell."

"Yes. She is. I can vouch for her," Dedue said.

"Then she can stay."

*

Months passed. News of the world outside Duscur came by fits and starts, mostly brought by caravans and visiting or returning Duscurans.

It was said that Margrave Gautier had ridden into Arianrhod with his pale shadow and after a week appointed a nobody - some scholar with no noble blood to speak of - administrator of the entire region. Even more amazingly, said nobody seemed to be doing wonders. It was also said that contrary to all expectations, Ferdinand Von Aegir, now governor of Adrestia, had kept many of the changes the fallen Emperor made. The disgraced, exiled nobles who expected to be welcomed back with open arms were left disappointed.

One day a caravan came all the way from Derdriu and brought with it tales of the great battles that had been fought by Lady Goneril and Count Gloucester, and how Duke Riegan and his battalion had fallen upon the enemy at the last possible and most opportune moment, as if Goddess-sent.

A wandering mercenary from Fhirdiad told of the stark solemnity of Byleth Eisner's coronation as Queen of all Fodlan.

One day Mercedes found him on his way back from mediating a dispute between a former Vanguard member and his brother. Disputes of this type were distressingly common - many of the Vanguard found it hard to readjust to a sedentary, quiet life after years of blood and pain. Dedue was often asked to go talk them down. After all, the life he'd led had been similarly poised on a knife-edge. They all had the same nightmares.

He smiled upon spotting Mercedes' distinctive silhouette, until he noticed the tear tracks on her face.

"Mercedes? What is the matter?"

"Nothing. I'm just happy. Look." She unfurled the piece of paper clutched in her fist and handed it to him carefully. "Seteth signed the proclamation denouncing isolation as doctrine."

"Do you believe this will bring change?"

Mercedes nodded. "I do. There's opposition, but they'll have to argue about it in the open this time. We should talk about what we want the Church to be. Not like before, when nothing ever changed."

"You would make a good archbishop," Dedue said.

Mercedes blushed. "Hush, you."

"I was not joking."

*

A season passed; then two. Dedue's lily seeds grew into saplings, covering the valley in green.

Settler homes began to empty out; Sylvain had offered to pay relocation costs for those who were willing to move to the parts of Eastern Faerghus decimated by the war, and before long caravans in Gautier or Fraldarius or Galatea colours loaded with the belongings of families setting out from the gates became a familiar sight.

There was plenty to occupy Dedue, and so he did not allow himself to dwell, beyond the particularly quiet, clear nights when he could not help but look up and wonder if Claude was doing the same.

He paid a young girl skilled with resin to make a pendant from the single lily Claude had given him all those months ago - when he'd asked Dedue to hang onto it until he could plant a field full of them. He kept the pendant on him as if there would be a chance to give it back any second.

Then one day Dedue rounded a corner, and there he was, in his Riegan finery, Mandana resting with her wings folded just behind, having a spirited conversation with Merul.

He'd let his hair grow; it was long enough to braid, held back from his face by a colourful, finely wrought sash and lent him a rakish air, more like the boy he'd been.

Something else was different, too, though it took Dedue a moment to realise what was missing. The Claude he'd met again in Enbarr had been stretched taut like a bowstring, all the way from Garreg Mach to Fhirdiad. Without that tension and exhaustion, there was a lightness to him, a return to the greater animation of his youth.

Whatever they were discussing, Merul was rapt. Dedue tried to remember if he'd ever seen him speak to a non-Duscuran for so long and so eagerly and could not recall another instance.

Of course Claude had charmed the first distrusting sullen person he set eyes on, he thought, amused.

It was no wonder his admiration for Claude had snuck up on him like a thief in the night. Dedue was not used to having anything for himself purely for the pleasure of it. Even his time in the greenhouse or the kitchens at Garreg Mach had utility, or at least he could tell himself that to make it acceptable, so that he didn't feel like he was stealing time from the only things that mattered.

He'd hidden it even from himself, because it was precious, and because it was surely impossible.

What would someone like Claude want from someone like him? Whatever it was had to be remarkable, for the way Claude lit up at the sight of him.

As Dedue watched he leaned closer to Merul as if sharing a secret and clasped his forearm, and Merul barked a laugh before waving him toward Dedue.

Dedue thought he knew why Merul seemed to be in an uncommonly light mood. The weight of Claude's focus warmed like the midday sun. He bowed, partly to buy time to compose himself, and partly because he wanted to.

"Your Grace. My apologies, I'm not sure of the correct title now."

"You know what I want you to call me," Claude said with a sly little smile, and Dedue felt his face heat up. "How have you been? This is amazing what you've managed in such a short time, Merul was just showing me around. It feels so different from before."

"What were you talking about? I have never seen him so interested."

"Textiles," Claude said blithely. "I was telling him where Almyran silk actually comes from. His mother used to let him help her work. He knows a lot."

Dedue shook his head. "He has not even mentioned family to anyone other than Elder Amesemi. You are a witch."

Claude grinned. "Flattery's unlike you, you're gonna make me blush. Merul called you the Protector of Duscur. Sounds important."

Dedue fought back the instinctive urge to demur. The impulse was unworthy of what he'd been entrusted with.

"It is a great honour to be appointed. We have not had Protectors for generations," he murmured instead.

Claude's eyes flickered over him, no doubt noting his light attire, as well as the axe at his back. "It's not just about fighting, is it?"

"No. Improving the soil, mediating disputes - there are many aspects to the role."

"Sounds like the perfect job for you," Claude said. "I'm not interrupting, am I? You must be busy."

As if he was just any other guest, and not the ruler of a neighbouring nation. Then again, that fit perfectly with how Claude had always been. He'd always behaved as if one's social station didn't matter.

"Not too busy for you." Dedue took a mental tally of what he had at home. Perhaps - yes. Why not? "I thought I might cook you a meal. If you have the time."

Claude blinked, as genuinely taken aback as Dedue had ever seen him, and then his lips curved into a brilliant smile.

"Wow, what an honour. Can I watch?"

"You may," Dedue said magnanimously, before snatches of stories he'd overheard at the Monastery came rushing back. "So long as you promise not to touch anything."

"I'm not that bad," Claude protested, laughing.

Dedue raised an eyebrow. "You were banned from the kitchens, if I recall correctly."

"Not like you to believe slanderous rumours," Claude started, but even he couldn't keep a straight face through such an outrageous lie. "Fine, I promise not to touch anything. Lead the way."

There was a critical shortage of housing for all the returning Duscurans, even with the steady stream of settlers leaving, and Dedue had taken care not to jump the queue or allow himself any special treatment.

He'd been allocated half of a small cottage, hastily converted from the spacious family home it had previously been into two dwellings separated by a thin, makeshift wall. The lack of space was not a problem; he had hardly accumulated many possessions in his years of travel and war. It was a comfortable place to lay his head, and that was enough.

Aside from the narrow bed, covered with an ornate quilted blanket he'd purchased on impulse from the marketplace, and a couple of beat-up old armchairs, most of the clutter was in the small but well-stocked kitchen.

Claude glanced around with transparent curiosity. "This is nice. Feels like you."

"It is home," Dedue said, and set to work.

Claude kept his promise scrupulously, although he hovered and asked a hundred questions as Dedue chopped and sauteed, as if food preparation was one of his mysteries that needed solving.

"You think I'd have a knack for it but apparently creativity is discouraged in cooking," he said loftily.

"It is not. You merely have to know the boundaries."

Claude grinned. "Ah. That I'm not so good at."

It was a simple enough dish - fresh fish he'd been given by a young man who'd gone wandering up river, sauteed with vegetables and a generous blend of Duscuran spices. Claude was duly impressed and plowed through his serving with great relish.

"This is delicious. The balance of spices is just right, and the fish is so tender. You were always the best cook out of all of us."

"Thank you."

Cooking was something he'd learned to treasure for the companionship of his friends, and for the memories it brought back of standing in his mother's kitchen. He'd worked hard at it too, remembering the way his mother's cooking had made him feel and hoping to see the same smile on Dimitri's face.

Claude's evident pleasure now as he cleared his plate warmed Dedue as much as the food itself. He made himself look away and retrieve the lily pendant from his satchel.

"I have something for you."

Claude carefully lifted the pendant from the palm of his hand as if it was a precious jewel, his eyes shining, and tucked it away with care.

"You're spoiling me today. This is lovely work. Does this mean - "

Dedue nodded. "I planted the flowers a few months ago."

"When can we see them?"

Dedue laughed at Claude's eager impatience. "Not yet. The first year is the toughest in the valleys. Perhaps next year."

"Next year, then." Claude's gaze flickered down to the table and stayed there. "Do you have anyone who'll take care of it for you for a bit?"

His voice was so soft Dedue had to strain to hear it.

"What do you mean?" he asked carefully.

Claude leaned forward and grasped Dedue's hand. He still had black gloves on - Dedue had only ever seen his bare hands once, when he'd come to bid Dedue farewell in Fhirdiad - and it was strange to be able to feel the strength of that grip without the warmth.

"I have to leave Fodlan for a while. Do you want to come with me?"

"You're going back to Almyra," Dedue realised. Hadn't he always felt like their time together was borrowed? He just hadn't known why.

"I knew you'd get it. You speak Almyran, don't you?"

"A little."

"Mhm. Thought so," Claude said. "So? It might be dangerous, I won't lie, and probably unpleasant. I'd like to have you by my side. Do you want some time to think it over?"

He didn't, not really. He'd decided a long time ago.

"I told you before. You only have to ask. I'm with you."

_To the bitter end, if need be._

Claude squeezed his hand before drawing back. He smiled, a brief, warm thing, though it faded into something more wry, almost self-deprecating. "You might find out some things about me you don't like."

"What do you mean?" Dedue asked, genuinely blindsided this time. In all the time he'd known Claude, first poorly and now considerably better, he'd never known him to set any stock in any conceivable person's view of him. Even people he liked.

"Things about me no one in Fodlan knows. Things like who I am. What I've done to be here," Claude said quietly.

"I very much doubt that."

Dedue had always been a good judge of character, and once he made up his mind he did not change it easily.

"You say that now," Claude said, although he looked pleased.

"Have I given you any reasons to question my word?"

"Of course not. You're bedrock. That's not what - well. You'll see. If you're sure, we need to leave pretty soon."

He would need to go settle things with Amesemi and ask to be released from service for a while. There were responsibilities he'd have to hand over. But that would not take long. He'd been preparing for this one last journey even before he knew what it would be.

"I am sure. May I ask - why now?"

Claude ran a hand through his hair and let out a long sigh. "I've been summoned home. The timing's not great, you're right, but I can't say no and maintain my claim."

"Your claim," Dedue repeated. He had the sense of a great fog just beginning to lift.

Claude slipped something out of an inside pocket and showed it to Dedue - a finely wrought signet ring with a familiar sunburst insignia. "I have a - let's call it a small claim to the throne."

This was it, then, or something close to it - another step toward the secret Claude held so close no one was allowed to glimpse it.

"When do we leave?"

*

Amesemi knew, of course, before Dedue even opened his mouth. She had probably pieced it together as soon as Claude arrived in Duscur, if the amused glint in her eyes was any indication.

"Come to say goodbye?"

"I've come to ask permission to go," Dedue said.

Amesemi stood and beckoned for him to bend so she could put her arms around him without strain.

"You don't need my permission. Home will be here for you, no matter how far you are. Go. Do what you need to do."

**To be continued in part 2: all the bright and dark places**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, now we really are going to Almyra. Please note the bumped up chapter count - there's some distance to go yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are greatly appreciated.
> 
> I'm stickmarionette on tumblr. Come say hi. I'm 4 hours late to the party as usual but I have a lot of Claude feelings and Dedue feelings and etc etc to make up for it.


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